The Bashful Bachelor

Lum and Abner were a radio duo popular during the 30's and 40's. Their success led them to make a series of movies featuring their characters (Chester Lauk plays Lum and Norris Goff plays Abner). Now, I have never heard their radio program, so I can't vouch on the quality of the show, but if the Bashful Bachelor is any comparison, then my God, America was REALLY starved for entertainment back then.

Lum and Abner run a general merchandise store in a town, Abner's trading addiction somehow gets him a horse which they train for the local horse competition (which a nasty businessman has also a horse in). There's also a plot of Lum trying to woo a local lady in town by trying to be a hero, some bit about glasses, cans keep getting falling down and so on.

It's plain to see that this is one jumbled mess, Some plots disappear for a while, making us wonder what happened to them, and this is totally unnecessarily longer then it needs to be (which tells me that they padded this story heavily.. why? WHY??)

Some big, fun names in this chapter of the radio-show-moved-to movies duo Lum and Abner. In this one, we also get Grady Sutton (was in some of the W.C. Fields films) and Zasu Pitts is "Geraldine". We also get to see Marni Nixon as "Angela Abernathy". Nixon dubbed in the singing voice for many of the singing stars of the 1950s and 1960s. In this story, the widow Abernathy (Nixon) is trolling for a husband and father for her horrible children. As usual, the guys are too busy helping out the local folks to make a profit at their own store. They end up with a horse, and then there's something about a kidnapping. None of this makes much sense, but we have fun going along for the ride. Very low key, safe, family entertainment. Also watch for larger than life Oscar O'Shea (plays the Squire); was in many of the great films, frequently background or uncredited roles. Directed by Malcom St. Clair, who also directed their "Two Weeks to Live". A fun way to knock off an hour and twenty minutes. Lots of puns, jokes, and witty thoughts.

Orson Welles didn't just plunk down in a sea of stupidity. That apparent stupidity had been working for decades on key elements of reflection in narrative. Here's a great example.

It consists of dumb hee-haw jokes. The two characters who are almost the whole show are two country bumpkins in a long tradition of bumpkin humor. They do stupid things and we laugh.

Simple.

But check out a few intelligent notions lurking beneath the surface. The jokes come from two reflexive notions.

The first is that everyone gets new, faulty glasses that distort their vision. Near and far are thrown out of whack. So the difference between what they see is mapped in a way to what we see and this distance between what makes sense to us and them.

The second idea is more cinematically reflective. One of these dopes is in love. He wants to be seen as a hero. We see his imagining at the very beginning as a movie in his head. We as viewers literally enter his internal movie before we enter the "real" one. The plot of the real movie involves him trying to make a fake movie so his love will see him as a hero

These aren't turned into egghead humor. I believe it significant that the writers probably had no intellectual intent in using these devices. But they are there, both of the then reinforcing each other as if the structural diagram were drawn first.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Famous Variety headline might have been written for this. I was unfamiliar with this comedy team. I watched for Zasu Pitts who is top billed but is very a supporting role. Its not really funny but interesting from a sociological perspective. Otherwise its a regional stereotype without wit. Or a minstrel show in white face. Or an expression of contempt by Hollywood for the deep south. I dunno. Some people seem to like it.

Lum and Abner's radio show was a slice of Media Americana representing the 30s. Their radio audience was used to 15 minute bites of the happenings at the Jot-em-Down Store and this is what the picture tries to recreate. There is little plot, 5-6 mini story lines within the film, and tons of whimsy. No, it is not Gone with the Wind, or Star Wars, but it is Lum and Abner brought to the cinema screen.

Listen to a few weeks of their 15 min radio show. Corny, but.. And then the movie will make sense of what the producers/directors were trying to capture.

And they did, very well for bringing Lum and Abner to life.