Let's Talk Turkey

I just got home from Thanksgiving dinner with my nieces and a cousin, turned on the TV to Turner Classic Movies, and discovered this. If only I had seen it before I left! I might have performed like the professional carver, instead of the Dave O'Brien character, played by William Newell... if my family had not learned, decades ago, not to allow me near sharp objects.

The expert makes it look easy, but then Newell, rejoicing in the character name of Abner Poodlebean or some such, makes a hash of it..... quite literally, since a hash is something that is hacked up like that turkey.

This is a typical Pete Smith Specialty with Dave O'Brien, who later provided much of the slapstick, sorely missed. By the time "Let's Talk Turkey" was released, Pete Smith's voice had become readily recognizable to movie goers. Though narrating with somewhat of a nasal twang, Pete's delivery was highly entertaining, as distinctive as Howard Cosell's a few years later. Pete's scripts were light, breezy, and at times whimsical. The specialties he produced over the years covered a wide range of subjects and topics. They were welcomed by theaters across the nation as popular fillers between features or before a major feature as selected short subjects (one-reelers lasting about ten minutes each).

"Let's Talk Turkey" begins with a demonstration of how to carve a turkey properly. Informative and educational from a cuisine point of view, this part of the specialty is serious instruction. The rest of the short features how not to carve a turkey demonstrated by a newly wed who has been ordered by his new wife to serve the turkey to his in-laws, father-in-law, mother-in-law, and baby brother, who just happens to be the bully, Butch, who got his jollies from tormenting Alfalfa. He looks the part of a bully but has no lines to speak. His facial expressions say it all. This part of "Let's Talk Turkey" is good for a few chuckles.

Certainly not on a level with Laurel and Hardy shorts, the Pete Smith Specialties, including this one, were entertaining little tidbits to watch when returning from the concession stand and settling down for the main feature. They were much better than the Joe McDoakes (George O'Hanlon) one-reelers released during the same time period. G'bye now.

Let's Talk Turkey (1939)

** (out of 4)

A rather bland Pete Smith short is pretty simple in terms of both execution and story. We have a "turkey carving expert" show us the correct way to carve a turkey so that not as much meat gets thrown away. We then see an average Joe asked by his wife to cut the turkey but of course everything goes wrong as he's nervous, doesn't know what he's doing and of course is given a dull knife. The Pete Smith series from MGM offered countless good films but sadly this here isn't one of them. There's really nothing funny here as the writing is just way too simple and constantly giving us the obvious gags, which the viewer will see coming from a mile away. When you do finally see them, since you expected them, they don't get a single laugh. The sad thing is that a pretty good looking turkey is wasted and not a single laugh comes from it. The first part of the film showing us the proper way to cut a turkey is mildly entertaining but in all my years on Earth I've yet to see anyone else cut a turkey like this.

I was expecting a much funnier Pete Smith Specialty short, the kind that usually featured Dave O'Brien and his skillful stunts and comic timing.

At least I was intrigued by the demonstration at the start of how to properly slice a Thanksgiving turkey, cutting it at the right angle and removing sections of bone that are in the way, etc. Fine and dandy.

Then we view the comic aspects of such an undertaking but with little really laughable results. It's all too obvious, having a sour looking table of relatives watch while a man makes mince meat of a turkey by cutting and struggling with it in as messy a way as possible.

The only real chuckles come from watching the expressions on the relative's faces as they accept the plates offered them, especially the bratty looking youngster who gets a piece of turkey skin on his face.

But the script needed a real funny man like Dave O'Brien to show us the wrong way to carve a turkey. He'd probably add additional funny stunts to the script. Then at least we'd have some genuine chuckles.

Instead, we have one of the weaker entries in the Pete Smith series.