Hot Paprika

Besides The Three Stooges, Andy Clyde was probably the best known of the comics making Columbia two-reel shorts. This is the first one of his I've seen, and while it has its moments, it didn't impress me all that much. It has most of the same crew the Stooges used, and there are familiar faces in the cast who regularly appear in Stooges shorts (Bud Jamison, Harry Semels), but it's not really all that funny. Columbia's comedy shorts tended to be fast-paced and frantic, trying to cram a lot of gags into their short running time, but this one seems to go on forever, especially (as another reviewer mentioned) in a scene where Andy is rolling down a hill lying on top of a door. There's a neat little bit where Andy is dancing with some cute little senorita in a cantina that's actually pretty funny, but overall it just doesn't gel. Maybe his other shorts were better than this one, but they'd pretty much have to be.

I'd never watched Andy Clyde in anything outside of his bits in compilations of Silent comedies; this, then, is one of his Talkie shorts – considering that it was made contemporaneously with The Three Stooges vehicles (which I checked out earlier this year), for the same studio (Columbia) and by some of the same people, it's no wonder the styles are practically indistinguishable! The heyday of the genre produced innumerable comics: however, only those that managed to create a unique personality survived – and Clyde is definitely one who has fallen through the cracks. This is because his only characteristic trait (at least, judging by this one short) is the fact that he's something of an elderly eccentric; otherwise, the gags he's involved in are mostly derivative of the work of other greater comedians – in fact, given the film's revolution-south-of-the-border plot line, it's particularly redolent of Harold Lloyd's WHY WORRY? (1923)…

Clyde is a bank clerk who's told by a doctor that he has only three months to live; a young girl from work he fancies tells him he should make the best of it and take a trip around the world…but before going, he 'avenges' himself on a couple of his male colleagues (which he says he'd been wanting to do for years!). He ends up in the Banana Republic of Paprika(!) – where, typically, the people have risen against the tyrannical state. Following some shenanigans in a club, in which he meets a fiery dancer and also gets mixed up with a couple of insurrectionists, he's forced to flee the place with the latter (when the military turn up to arrest them). This is done, however, by way of a spectacular stunt, which sees Clyde violently thrown out of the joint, tearing the door clean off its hinges and sliding all the way down a hill on top of it! Eventually, the trio engage in 'combat' against the soldiers – with Clyde forming mud-balls and firing them through a cannon!; at the end, our hero is brought before the firing squad – which arouses his amusement, given that he was dying anyway…but the last laugh's on him, as a letter from home arrives just then bearing the information that the medical diagnosis had been wrong!

This is a harmless and occasionally pleasant short but, in the long run, it doesn't make one eager to seek out more of the comedian's stuff. Incidentally, HOT PAPRIKA was included as an (irrelevant) extra on Columbia's "Icons Of Adventure" 2-Disc Set – comprising four atypical outings from Britain's famed horror stable, Hammer Films!

I normally don't write what I am about to write, but try reading the review for this film by MARIO GAUCI (marrod@onvol.net). It's exceptionally well-written, encapsulates the movie very well and I really respect his insights into the film. I agree with him that this film is very reminiscent of a Three Stooges short and that while pleasant enough, it's also quite forgettable and would in no way encourage the viewer to seek out the comedies of Andy Clyde.

Andy thinks that he's a dying man thanks to a really irresponsible doctor. So, thinking he has nothing to lose, he tells off his bosses and sets off on a trip around the world. When he arrives in Paprika, he accidentally becomes involved in a revolution--but who cares, after all, since he thinks he's dying.

I also have seen Harold Lloyd's earlier film WHY WORRY? and I couldn't help but think that HOT PAPRIKA was a rather blatant ripoff of Lloyd's film. What's worse, all the subtlety and beauty of the Lloyd effort is lost in the Clyde film. HOT PAPRIKA has some very broad humor (such as the awful and way too long scene where Clyde is riding on a runaway door) and is just a shadow of Lloyd's wonderful film--which I recommend you see instead if you only want to see one of these films.