The Screwball Satirists:
Wheeler and Woolsey
Part II
(Dottie, Bert and Bob..."Cockeyed Cavaliers")
Wheeler and Woolsey have sometimes been unfavorably compared to other teams, particularly the Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy, comparisons which reveal the analysts' failure to comprehend both the uniqueness of Bert and Bob's contrasting characterizations and the uniqueness of the comedy world which they inhabit, a world which differs substantially from that of either the Marx Brothers or Laurel and Hardy. The basis of the Marx Brothers' comedy world is their contrast with, and anarchic assault upon, a completely and hopelessly sane and rational society. With Laurel and Hardy, the basis of their comic world is their failure, due to their incompetence, to adjust to a regulated world which they aspire to join. But with Wheeler and Woolsey, the basis of their world of comedy lies in the belief that the whole world is a crazy place where anything can happen and where every institution is essentially screwy. The result is that the comic view of their films emphasizes the absurdities of the institutions with which we live and which we take for granted as normal. Divorce suits, the prison system, the military, ineffectual peace conferences, South American coups d'etats, big business, the genre of African exploration documentaries--all are targets for satire in Wheeler and Woolsey's comedies. In their antics, the team was ably assisted by a talented roster of supporting comedians, headed by their perennial leading lady and co-star, the beautiful, petite and vivacious Dorothy Lee, who appeared in 13 of the team's 21 features. In many ways, the collective characterizations of the three great comedy teams of the '30s is reminiscent of the three great solo comedians of the silent era. The Marx Brothers resemble Charlie Chaplin in their continual battle with the establishment, Laurel and Hardy are similar to Buster Keaton in their stoic resignation to a world with which they cannot cope, and Wheeler and Woolsey recall Harold Lloyd in their boundless buoyancy and triumphant pursuit of success. As befits the cynicism of the Depression era, however, Wheeler and Woolsey's formula for getting ahead in the world is customarily quite dubious, often involving outright deception. Only once, in DIPLOMANIACS (1933), are Wheeler and Woolsey completely defeated when the craziness of the war-mongering nations of the world combines with the greed of arms manufacturers to smash the idealistic peace movement represented by the comedians and succeeds in bringing on the ultimate insanity in the form of a world war. Usually, however, when pursuing more immediate and worldly goals, Wheeler and Woolsey triumph through a combination of bluff, calculation and sheer luck.
(Robert Woolsey and Esther Muir)
HIPS, HIPS, HOORAY!, PEACH O'RENO, CRACKED NUTS, and DIPLOMANIACS
are representative of the team's use of satire and the unique style of
crazy comedy they brought to the screen which produced a succession of
consistently excellent and hilarious films.
HIPS, HIPS, HOORAY! (1934) is a superb example of Wheeler and Woolsey's
satire of the American business world and its ideal of self-advancement.
This handsomely-mounted and beautifully constructed comedy was directed
by Mark Sandrich on the eve of his direction of the classic Fred Astaire-Ginger
Rogers musicals and written by Kalmar and Ruby shortly after they wrote
the Marx Brothers' DUCK SOUP. The story has Bert and Bob as street
peddlers who are selling flavored lipstick without a license. As
a result, they are only one jump ahead of the police. The duo persuade
Bert's girl friend, Dorothy Lee, an employee in Thelma Todd's large cosmetics
firm, that they are millionaires who are resorting to selling their wares
on the street only to feel the pulse of the public. Dottie in turn
persuades her employer, Thelma, who is anxious to improve her business
with a novelty like flavored lipsticks, to arrange a meeting with Wheeler
and Woolsey to discuss the possibility of a merger between their companies.
The boys, who have been reduced to sleeping in a broken-down jalopy, decide
to obtain by trickery a handsome suite of offices for their meeting place
with Thelma and Dottie in order to impress Miss Todd and wangle her into
a merger. While Bob pretends to want to make an investment with the
tenant of the office suite who is the manager of an investment company,
Bert calls the man up on the telephone and informs him that his house is
on fire. When the manager hurriedly prepares to leave his office
for the mythical fire, Bob pursues him into the hall, inquiring, "What
kind of a house is it, stucco, wood or brick?" "Brick," the man answers.
"Oh, well, then you have nothing to worry about," Woolsey reassures him.
"Brick takes longer to burn. How long do you think you'll be gone?"
"How should I know?" the man says. "Well, don't hurry back on my
account," Bob replies, handing the man a fire extinguisher as he rushes
into the elevator. The girls are properly impressed with the handsome
office although, as Bert remarks, they will have to give it up soon "because
the owner's going to tear the building down when he gets back." By
means of a concealed alarm clock doubling as a busy telephone bell, the
boys convince the ladies that the scale of their enterprise is indeed large.
The beauteous Miss Todd seductively tells Woolsey, "I thought perhaps we
could get together on a proposition," to which Bob replies with equal flirtatiousness,
"Well, I'm awfully glad that you came up to see me. Your idea of
getting together on a proposition interests me. What night have you
got open?" This is followed by a rendition by the four of a Kalmar
and Ruby song which became a popular favorite, "Keep on Doin' What You're
Doin'." It starts with Bert and Dottie singing it perched precariously
on the window high over the street. Then as Thelma and Bob sing the
lyrics ("Just keep on doin' what you're doin'/Although it's leadin' me
to ruin" etc.), she plucks the buttons off his shirt, tears up his hat
and pulls out his underwear! After this, the quartet perform a surrealistic
mock ballet of mad grace during the course of which Bob converts a lampshade
into a ballet skirt and dances with Thelma. Mr. Wheeler, Mr. Woolsey
and Miss Todd rhythmically break vases, and merrily toss Miss Lee around
the room in the manner of a circus acrobat. When Dottie is swinging
from a chandelier, the manager of the office returns from the non-existent
fire, an unexpected development which causes the whimsical foursome to
beat a hasty but still rhythmic retreat as they dance out of the office!
In another scene, Bob, parodying the self-important executive, is behind
a desk littered with telephones when one of them rings. The secretary
answers the correct phone and Woolsey orders her, "Tell him I'm not in."
"But it isn't for you," she informs him. "Well, tell him I'm not
in anyway," he persists. "I'll show him who's boss around here."
So the film progresses from one insanity to another, climaxing with a frenetic
chase in which Bert and Bob wind up driving a racing car in a transcontinental
race. To increase publicity for their products, the cosmetics firm
headed by Miss Todd and Wheeler and Woolsey and a rival company have both
entered cars in the race. At one point, the boys, caught in a cyclone,
are blown to the snowy Rocky Mountains, a situation from which they escape
by placing their car on skis and skiing it across the Rockies. In
the end, of course, the boys win the race with their own screwy methods.
PEACH O'RENO was directed by William A. Seiter whose many outstanding
credits include one of Laurel and Hardy's finest features, SONS OF THE
DESERT, and written by Tim Whelan and Ralph Spence. It satirizes
the Reno divorce industry, showing it to be a big business like any other.
Divorce lawyers Wheeler and Woolsey have become rich through divorce suits
and indeed, a special streetcar takes divorce-seeking clients to the duo's
office. By night, Bert and Bob's office serves as a casino and, as
Woolsey remarks to the guests, "It's certainly good to see so many happily
divorced couples here tonight." Interviewing one woman client, Woolsey
pulls down a patented rapping shade and tells her to take her pick from
a list of the unpleasant attributes of the unwanted spouse. After
the woman angrily recites them all ("a cheat," "a souse," "a preposterous
prevaricator," etc.), Bob comments, "You don't want a divorce. You want
a firing squad." Like any other big business, there is cut-throat
competition in the divorce industry. The rival firm of Jackson, Jackson,
Jackson and Jackson starts a price war on divorces by lowering their rates.
Wheeler and Woolsey retaliate by pricing their divorce rates even lower.
The next move of Jackson, Jackson, Jackson and Jackson is to have one of
the Jacksons appointed judge so that he will be in a capacity to rule against
every suit represented by Bert and Bob. Further complications arise
with the appearance of a gunman who is determined to kill Bert for getting
his wife a divorce. In an attempt to escape the gunman, Wheeler disguises
himself as a woman despite his reservations about being able to pass for
a woman since, as he says, "I don't look masculine enough." Into
this scene come two attractive young sisters (Dorothy Lee and Zelma O'Neal)
who have motored all the way from Maine to Reno in their roadster in an
attempt to halt their parents' divorce. The boys fall for them and
decide to help them. The courthouse where this case is tried is a
circus with vendors hawking their wares in the aisles of the courtroom
and radio station GIN, "the breath of Reno," broadcasting the proceedings.
All ends happily as Wheeler and Woolsey succeed in having the suit dismissed
by playing on the emotions of the judge and jury and thus reconciling their
girl friends' parents.
(Bert and Dottie with Edna May Olive..."Cracked Nuts")
CRACKED NUTS was directed by Edward Cline, renowned for his association
with Buster Keaton and W. C. Fields, and written by Al Boasberg, Ralph
Spence and the former silent film comedian, Douglas MacLean. It was
praised by Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times as "a clever farce" and
"an excellent job of work;" he commented that "this production skips
along so merrily that it actually seems too short." Most of the film
takes place in the mythical South American kingdom of El Dorania as it
satirizes the constant coups d'etats in Latin America in its depiction
of the military in alliance with corrupt politicians continually overthrowing
the reigning sovereign. King Oscar, the latest ruler, is determined
to escape the fate of his predecessors who have all been assassinated by
the military. He gambles away his crown in a dice game with Zander
Ulysses Parkhurst (Bob Woolsey) and luckily escapes from the country with
his life while Bob becomes King Zup, the new monarch of El Dorania.
(His name is derived from the initials of the character he portrays in
the film.) He also acquires a woman named Carlotta who informs him
that she has been the favorite of all of the 12 kings who have reigned
in El Dorania during the past year. "You're not a wife," Woolsey
observes to her. "You're a calendar." Bert Wheeler portrays
Wendel Graham who is down to his last $100,000 and is hotly opposed in
his courtship of Dorothy Lee by her aunt Minnie (Edna May Oliver).
With his remaining funds, Bert purchases a revolution from an El Doranian
politician, played by Boris Karloff on the eve of his success in FRANKENSTEIN.
Karloff, in league with General Bogardus, plans a coup d'etat to overthrow
the current monarch and make Bert the new king of El Dorania. Bert
sails for El Dorania on the same ship as his sweetheart, Dottie, and Miss
Oliver who has extensive landholdings in the South American nation.
When he arrives, Bert discovers that the present king is his old friend,
Woolsey, and he is naturally reluctant to shoot Bob in order to become
king himself. When Bob expresses a wish to be executed by a novel
method if he has to be killed, General Bogardus decides that Woolsey will
be bombed from the sky by an airplane. "It will be remembered for
years," the general says. "Yeah, but not by me," remarks Bob.
There is a large crowd on the big day and the aviator turns out to be cross-eyed
Ben Turpin who, as Woolsey notes, "is so cockeyed that he spent three years
in the southeast trying to join the Northwest Mounted Police." In
the crazy climax, Bob, seated on a throne, narrowly escapes the exploding
bombs. Finally, an explosion from one of the bombs strikes oil and
El Dorania is suddenly a wealthy nation. The country becomes a republic
and Bob, as the first president, appoints Edna May Oliver the Secretary
of War. This satirical farce may very well have inspired two other
satires set in mythical nations ruled by cigar-smoking comedians: MILLION
DOLLAR LEGS (1932) starring W. C. Fields and Jack Oakie, which Cline also
directed, and the Marx Brothers' DUCK SOUP (1933).
DIPLOMANIACS, directed by Seiter and written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Henry Myers (who had co-authored MILLION DOLLAR LEGS), is the team's most extraordinary satire. The film depicts the disastrous Geneva Peace Conference that had convened in 1932 and which had failed to halt the rearming of the various powers, a situation which eventually led to the Second World War. In its satirical presentation of these events, DIPLOMANIACS, an excellent early example of black humor, is the most surrealistic in form and, at the same time, the most bitterly realistic in point of view of Wheeler and Woolsey's comedies. For once, Wheeler and Woolsey are completely defeated in their goals, ending up as victims of a nightmarish insanity which they are powerless to control. As the film opens, Bert and Bob are barbers on an American Indian reservation whose business is failing because the Indians do not need to shave. The peace-loving Indian nation, newly rich from the discovery of oil on their land, hires the boys to be their representatives to the Geneva Peace Conference in order to induce the nations of the world to sign a treaty renouncing war. Wheeler and Woolsey set sail for Europe and encounter formidable opposition to their peace mission from the High Explosive Bullet Company which depends upon continuous warfare for its profits. The general manager of this corporation, played by Louis Calhern, is constantly scheming to wreck Bert and Bob's mission. He hires a wisecracking Chinese assistant (Hugh Herbert) who is unable to get along with Calhern, and, refusing to take his villainous plans seriously, eventually quits the conspiracy to return to China. Calhern also hires a young woman named Dolores (Marjorie White) to seduce Wheeler and Woolsey and steal their briefcase. (As she says: "I've got what it takes to take what they've got.") In her efforts to lure Bert into a trap, she is continually forcing him to sing to her. The captain of the ship on which they are sailing gets drunk and they spend eight months crossing the Atlantic, four times as long as it took Columbus in 1492. When they are in Paris, Dolores succeeds in stealing Bert and Bob's briefcase but the duo continues on to Geneva where they survive many attempts on their lives by the directors of the High Explosive Bullet Company. They finally arrive at the Peace Conference where they find the delegates fighting on the very conference floor. When Bert and Bob attempt to discuss peace, they are driven out by the war-loving delegates. However, they return and through their showmanlike appeals for an end to warfare, they temporarily win the delegates over to the side of world peace. But soon the businessmen of the High Explosive Bullet Company succeed in sabotaging Wheeler and Woolsey's peace mission completely by forging the names on the peace treaty intended to be signed by the delegates from the various nations of the world. Bert and Bob, thinking the signatures on the treaty to be genuine, depart for what they envision will be a triumphant reception back home. "We'll be the greatest heroes the world has ever known!" they exclaim. Instead, the nations of the world become enraged when it is discovered that the treaty has been forged. As a result, the Second World War breaks out and Wheeler and Woolsey are unfairly blamed for it. When the boys step out of their airplane, after returning home, they are met by soldiers which Bert and Bob mistake for a heroes' welcome by the Indians. "Fellow redskins," Bob proclaims, "this is the greatest moment of your lives. You see in me another Sitting Bull and my little pal here, sitting pretty." They are interrupted by a tough sergeant who hands them guns and gruffly orders them to shut up and fall in line. "Now look here, my good man," protests Bob, "I don't like the tone of your voice nor your ugly face." "Better get used to both of them," the sergeant replies. "America's at war and you've been drafted. You're in the army now!" And so the film ends on an absurd and hopeless note with Wheeler and Woolsey being marched off to war, victims of greedy capitalists and intolerant nation-states. Many films have exposed greed and the self-destructive insanity of the human race as the principal causes of war but what is unusual about DIPLOMANIACS is that it uses the medium of broad farce to express these grim truths. Like DUCK SOUP (produced the same year), DIPLOMANIACS was too offbeat to be properly appreciated in its own time but it remains a trenchant and uproarious commentary on the darkest aspect of human existence and a testimony to the freedom which many filmmakers enjoyed in the early '30s.
Like most lasting screen humor, the comedy of Wheeler and Woolsey
finds its source in characterization, in the interplay between the two
engagingly zany comedians with the contrasting yet harmonious personalities,
and in their relationship to the crazy world in which they move.
Perhaps when there are more studies of this period, Wheeler and Woolsey's
films will be more frequently revived for audience viewing. Then,
instead of being the most underrated of American film comedians, sad-faced
Bert Wheeler and horn-rimmed Robert Woolsey will be regarded as one of
the three greatest comedy teams in American film history.