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When I get tight, why don't I go home?
Skeets Gallagher doesn't have to do anything to make me love him in Lightning Strikes Twice (1934). From the moment he sits up in Ben Lyon's bed with his silvery hair spiked out in all directions and his hangover audibly duking it out for supremacy with last night's lingering drinks, absentmindedly rolling two socks onto the same foot with poignant pointlessness as he fails to reconstruct the sequence of events which led from the floor show of a stag night to a bedroom strewn with confetti and a squeaky-faced balloon in a party hat tied to the foot of the bed, he is so archetypally the hero's dissipated friend that he can hang around kibitzing for as long as he feels like and I won't kick.
The film to which he belongs is an absolutely sterling example of inessential American cinema. It's a contract picture, populated by players who needed to fill up their dance cards for RKO; its premise hasn't altered since the days of New Comedy and its action only as a reflection on the shifting repertoire of stock characters across two thousand years; it doesn't have a plot so much as an escalation of lazzi and after about an hour the film runs out. One of the lazily irrepressible ne'er-do-wells of Depression-era escapism, Lyon's Steve Brewster has twenty-four hours to gain his flightily globe-trotting aunt's approval of his well-bred fiancée, make a good impression of his own on his naval officer of a prospective father-in-law, and successfully conceal his normal record of shenanigans from anyone with the capacity to call the banns off without a cent, a tall farcical order even without the complications of two grifting vaudevillians, three apparent murders, and one very persistent reporter, not to mention the wild cards of the maniacal-looking character who darts periodically through the mise-en-scène with gun in hand and the couple of policemen who have become glumly lost in the sewers of Pasadena. One presumes that only through an oversight on the part of screenwriters Joseph Fields and John Grey were none of the characters stolen in infancy by pirates. In compensation, Gallagher's Wally elevates the facepalm to a kind of interpretative dance while Laura Hope Crews' Aunt Jane is nothing but charmed by the phony versions of Judy and Captain Nelson even when Pert Kelton's Fay comes down to dinner in a squiffed version of her fan dance and Walter Catlett's Gus entangles himself in his aiguillettes while belting out such maritime malaprops as "I'm so empty, my mizzenmast is poking a hole through my jib sail." The authentic Judy is portrayed by Thelma Todd, enabling her to deliver in her most refined accents of disappointment the reproachful antimetabole, "I wanted a husband with the virtues of a lover, not a lover with the vices of a husband." The picture was produced in the freshly Code-enforcing latter half of '34, but it doesn't seem to have noticed from the breezy way it lets Gus assume that a present from Paris is a French postcard or Fay moan after a supposed car accident that she's broken "two ribs and eight commandments." Chick Chandler's Marty Hicks springs indefatigably after his story only for the detective about to go undercover as a missing butler to warn him off with a growled "I was solving murders when you were in three-cornered pants." As the original Nelsons bear down on Steve without a word from his itinerant aunt, a moderately reconstituted Wally dashes a spoonful of orange juice into his hair of the dog and offers so casually it's a crime the film doesn't take him up on it, "I'll sub for Aunt Jane."
Skeets Gallagher, who was occasionally credited by his given name of Richard, falls into the category of character actors for whom I have a great affection without actually having seen them in very much. In The Racket (1928), he plays a reporter so vague and crocked, with just the right wicked and whimsical air that if the film hadn't premiered a full two months after the publication of Frederick Nebel's "Raw Law," I would give him serious consideration as an inspiration and not merely dream casting for the character of Kennedy. In Possessed (1931), his society wastrel shares a glass of champagne with a discontented mill-town Joan Crawford and in a rare moment of sobriety encourages her to exploit the men she meets for all they're worth like Baby Face (1933) without the Nietzsche, cheerfully refusing to mentor her any further: "The East River is full of girls who took advice from men like me." Pale-haired and plaintively browed, he could have played the White Rabbit without the elaborate costume in the star-studded, live-action Alice in Wonderland (1933). His introduction in Lightning Strikes Twice is one of its nicest pre-Code throwbacks, as Steve comes to consciousness equally minus his recall of the previous night; apprehensively disentangling a sheer stocking from around his neck, he registers the heap in the quilts beside him, peels back the covers in trepidation of a feminine form whose name he will be expected to remember, and at the sight of another man asleep in his pajamas sighs in unfeigned relief, "You had me scared for a minute!" Prevented once again from relapsing into the pillows, Wally regards his morning person of a best friend with understandable acid: "I might add that your high spirits are very depressing." Plotwise, he contributes the brainwave of trying to scare Aunt Jane off the fraudulent Nelsons by bribing Gus to throw a fit in the middle of dinner—it takes an extra $50 for the old trouper to agree to the climactic spin on the ear—but he's far more indispensable to the preposterous atmosphere, wincing and ducking and blurting with ever-diminishing, Buñuelian optimism, "I want to go home." At one point in tandem with Steve, he simply hides, not very effectively, behind a couch.
Directed and co-conceived by Ben Holmes with Marion Dix, Lightning Strikes Twice should on no account be confused with a good movie, which is irrelevant to its value as a comedy of nonsense. It starts on a dark and stormy night when suddenly a scream rings out. One of its most valuable supporting players is a black cat to whom I am pleased to report nothing bad happens at all. Describing it as a mystery-comedy suggests that it remembers about its bloodstained overcoat and missing person more consistently than it does, but describing it as a romantic comedy suggests that it regards the inevitable union of Steve and Judy as more than a set of goalposts to be moved for as long as new gags can be crammed in front of them. It is a great showcase for wisecracks. Gus whistles over a diamond bracelet, "Blow the man down, lady, that certainly is a cargo of ice," and boasts of his bogus daughter's specialty, "When she's really what you call accomplished, she don't use no fans." Worried that the reportage of murder will unnerve his aunt, Steve is immediately reassured by Wally that "she never reads anything but the society column," and then, truthfully, "and Popeye." At a fleeting moment of dramatic tension, Judy promises not to leave Steve while he's in trouble, prompting the world-class romantic double-speaking of "Darling, then you'll never leave me." I am horrified that I cannot locate this picture for free on the internet as opposed to Watch TCM when the Internet Archive furnishes me with much classier movies every day. If you can get hold of it, have fun with whatever strikes you as worth it. Skeets Gallagher is good enough for me. This cargo brought to you by my accomplished backers at Patreon.
The film to which he belongs is an absolutely sterling example of inessential American cinema. It's a contract picture, populated by players who needed to fill up their dance cards for RKO; its premise hasn't altered since the days of New Comedy and its action only as a reflection on the shifting repertoire of stock characters across two thousand years; it doesn't have a plot so much as an escalation of lazzi and after about an hour the film runs out. One of the lazily irrepressible ne'er-do-wells of Depression-era escapism, Lyon's Steve Brewster has twenty-four hours to gain his flightily globe-trotting aunt's approval of his well-bred fiancée, make a good impression of his own on his naval officer of a prospective father-in-law, and successfully conceal his normal record of shenanigans from anyone with the capacity to call the banns off without a cent, a tall farcical order even without the complications of two grifting vaudevillians, three apparent murders, and one very persistent reporter, not to mention the wild cards of the maniacal-looking character who darts periodically through the mise-en-scène with gun in hand and the couple of policemen who have become glumly lost in the sewers of Pasadena. One presumes that only through an oversight on the part of screenwriters Joseph Fields and John Grey were none of the characters stolen in infancy by pirates. In compensation, Gallagher's Wally elevates the facepalm to a kind of interpretative dance while Laura Hope Crews' Aunt Jane is nothing but charmed by the phony versions of Judy and Captain Nelson even when Pert Kelton's Fay comes down to dinner in a squiffed version of her fan dance and Walter Catlett's Gus entangles himself in his aiguillettes while belting out such maritime malaprops as "I'm so empty, my mizzenmast is poking a hole through my jib sail." The authentic Judy is portrayed by Thelma Todd, enabling her to deliver in her most refined accents of disappointment the reproachful antimetabole, "I wanted a husband with the virtues of a lover, not a lover with the vices of a husband." The picture was produced in the freshly Code-enforcing latter half of '34, but it doesn't seem to have noticed from the breezy way it lets Gus assume that a present from Paris is a French postcard or Fay moan after a supposed car accident that she's broken "two ribs and eight commandments." Chick Chandler's Marty Hicks springs indefatigably after his story only for the detective about to go undercover as a missing butler to warn him off with a growled "I was solving murders when you were in three-cornered pants." As the original Nelsons bear down on Steve without a word from his itinerant aunt, a moderately reconstituted Wally dashes a spoonful of orange juice into his hair of the dog and offers so casually it's a crime the film doesn't take him up on it, "I'll sub for Aunt Jane."
Skeets Gallagher, who was occasionally credited by his given name of Richard, falls into the category of character actors for whom I have a great affection without actually having seen them in very much. In The Racket (1928), he plays a reporter so vague and crocked, with just the right wicked and whimsical air that if the film hadn't premiered a full two months after the publication of Frederick Nebel's "Raw Law," I would give him serious consideration as an inspiration and not merely dream casting for the character of Kennedy. In Possessed (1931), his society wastrel shares a glass of champagne with a discontented mill-town Joan Crawford and in a rare moment of sobriety encourages her to exploit the men she meets for all they're worth like Baby Face (1933) without the Nietzsche, cheerfully refusing to mentor her any further: "The East River is full of girls who took advice from men like me." Pale-haired and plaintively browed, he could have played the White Rabbit without the elaborate costume in the star-studded, live-action Alice in Wonderland (1933). His introduction in Lightning Strikes Twice is one of its nicest pre-Code throwbacks, as Steve comes to consciousness equally minus his recall of the previous night; apprehensively disentangling a sheer stocking from around his neck, he registers the heap in the quilts beside him, peels back the covers in trepidation of a feminine form whose name he will be expected to remember, and at the sight of another man asleep in his pajamas sighs in unfeigned relief, "You had me scared for a minute!" Prevented once again from relapsing into the pillows, Wally regards his morning person of a best friend with understandable acid: "I might add that your high spirits are very depressing." Plotwise, he contributes the brainwave of trying to scare Aunt Jane off the fraudulent Nelsons by bribing Gus to throw a fit in the middle of dinner—it takes an extra $50 for the old trouper to agree to the climactic spin on the ear—but he's far more indispensable to the preposterous atmosphere, wincing and ducking and blurting with ever-diminishing, Buñuelian optimism, "I want to go home." At one point in tandem with Steve, he simply hides, not very effectively, behind a couch.
Directed and co-conceived by Ben Holmes with Marion Dix, Lightning Strikes Twice should on no account be confused with a good movie, which is irrelevant to its value as a comedy of nonsense. It starts on a dark and stormy night when suddenly a scream rings out. One of its most valuable supporting players is a black cat to whom I am pleased to report nothing bad happens at all. Describing it as a mystery-comedy suggests that it remembers about its bloodstained overcoat and missing person more consistently than it does, but describing it as a romantic comedy suggests that it regards the inevitable union of Steve and Judy as more than a set of goalposts to be moved for as long as new gags can be crammed in front of them. It is a great showcase for wisecracks. Gus whistles over a diamond bracelet, "Blow the man down, lady, that certainly is a cargo of ice," and boasts of his bogus daughter's specialty, "When she's really what you call accomplished, she don't use no fans." Worried that the reportage of murder will unnerve his aunt, Steve is immediately reassured by Wally that "she never reads anything but the society column," and then, truthfully, "and Popeye." At a fleeting moment of dramatic tension, Judy promises not to leave Steve while he's in trouble, prompting the world-class romantic double-speaking of "Darling, then you'll never leave me." I am horrified that I cannot locate this picture for free on the internet as opposed to Watch TCM when the Internet Archive furnishes me with much classier movies every day. If you can get hold of it, have fun with whatever strikes you as worth it. Skeets Gallagher is good enough for me. This cargo brought to you by my accomplished backers at Patreon.
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In which case Gus’ maritime lingo probably sounds entirely authentic to her.
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This is a legitimate point.
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This kind of thing reminds me a bit of the comedy style in the Wheeler & Woolsey movies!
(Is this the movie, by the way?)
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Very! Walter Catlett is almost doing a Woolsey character, even, although then Wheeler would have had to be the fan dancer. The black horn-rims help.
(Is this the movie, by the way?)
It is! Thank you. Greymarket for the win. (Enjoy!)
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It was! And
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They should bottle it as tonic.
Nine
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It was very good nonsense! It had no pretensions to anything else! I really appreciated it.
They should bottle it as tonic.
It was restorative.
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Surprisingly so!
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I also had assumed the Code enforcement was especially strict at the start, but this movie seems to have waved to any memos it received from Breen and company as they flew by. I'd love to read its PCA file, but no joy online.
and Walter Catlett's already doing his best Bob W for sure, for sure, ahem, ahem. But it's very easy to see Bert and Dorothy Lee in the Ben Lyons and Thelma Todd roles and Edna May Oliver as Aunt Jane.
She would have been impeccable on the line about the poop deck.
Easy indeed! You can even let Pert Kelton keep on fan dancing, and throw in whatever lazzi you just have laying around.
I really am reluctant to lose Skeets Gallagher, but it is true that if you fused him and Lyon, you pretty much would get Bert. That plangent, katzenjammered "And would you please make that cat stop stamping her feet?"
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It has zero structural integrity and I enjoyed it very much!
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I think inessential cinema is often the best cinema. Art doesn't always have to take itself seriously.
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It's true. I like a lot of B-pictures better than the A-features they were produced to support. I highly doubt this film was intended for the ages, but ninety years later it still gave me a really fun time.
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*cackles*
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I loved that one.
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two grifting vaudevillians, three apparent murders, and one very persistent reporter, not to mention the wild cards of the maniacal-looking character who darts periodically through the mise-en-scène with gun in hand --I like what this new-lyrics version of the twelve days of Christmas brings to the table.
One presumes that only through an oversight on the part of screenwriters Joseph Fields and John Grey were none of the characters stolen in infancy by pirates. --Their ghosts are kicking themselves as they read your entry.
"I wanted a husband with the virtues of a lover, not a lover with the vices of a husband." --I like it!
"I was solving murders when you were in three-cornered pants." --And this one too!
One of its most valuable supporting players is a black cat to whom I am pleased to report nothing bad happens at all. --Excellent; I am glad.
At a fleeting moment of dramatic tension, Judy promises not to leave Steve while he's in trouble, prompting the world-class romantic double-speaking of "Darling, then you'll never leave me." --Also very nice ^_^
Sounds like a LOT of fun!
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Occasionally, if you're lucky, both!
--I like what this new-lyrics version of the twelve days of Christmas brings to the table.
Hee. Thank you. The maniacal-looking character with the gun really is the tree topper in this scenario.
--Excellent; I am glad.
We were prepared to reassure our movie cats that it was only a movie, but even the black cat had a happy ending.
Sounds like a LOT of fun!
It was! We had merely hoped it would be an hour's worth of diverting; I regret nothing.