M-m-m-BOY!

I finished the BOMC series, up to the most recent release-- BOMC-029, details of which were made available during the couple days I was working on the series. This ends my first stab at the series on a spectacular high note-- A T-cup, no less. Let's see how long that record holds. After that I slowed down a bit, perusing sites for other series to start or update. IZM has three new DVDs out, so I started articles on them. I downloaded their new Masaki Amamiya video clip (Masaki seen at right) which greatly meets with my hearty approval. M-m-m-BOY! That's one fine chunk of woman! "Warmth in the winter and shade in the summer," as the man says.

After the editing, I flopped out out the Mill Creek Comedy box again and watched Peck's Bad Boy with the Circus (RKO, 1938) with Edgar Kennedy, William Demarest, Spanky MacFarland, and Billy Gilbert, and directed by Eddie Kline. Decent little B-movie comedy, the one really funny scene was with Kennedy "taiming" two lions who had just been drugged with sleeping pills, and trying to make them appear ferocious enough to give the audience a thrill. A nice touch is when he trips on one of the dozing felines on his way out of the cage, and the lion looks up and yawns. The director didn't quite milk that scene for its potential worth though... Eddie Kline's kind of an odd duck anyway-- He directed some of the greatest comedies of all time-- Keaton's One Week, W.C. Fields' The Bank Dick and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break), yet he actually doesn't seem to really have been much of a director. He wasn't consistent. His stars handled the show. In fact I think I read where Fields requested Kline to direct Bank Dick and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, because the studio wouldn't let him-- Fields-- direct, but he knew Kline wouldn't object to Fields saying how things should be done. Peck's Bad Boy gave Edgar Kennedy a chance for a bigger role, to show off his talents as he does in his classic Laurel & Hardy and Marx Brothers (Duck Soup) appearances, though, of course, this film doesn't compare at all to those classics, or to the classics Kline directed. Or, for that matter, the classic Laurel & Hardy films Edgar Kennedy himself directed (You're Darn Tootin' for one). All-in-all a decent, though not spectacular, way to pass 65 minutes. It gave a few laughs. Click here, and watch it for yourself. After that I watched the Laurel and Hardy short, Double Whoopee (1929), the "talkie" version that Chuck McCann dubbed over the original silent in the '60s. Absolutely hilarious, with great bits from L&H regulars Charlie Hall and Tiny Sandford.