Some big, fun names in this chapter of the radio-show-moved-to movies duo Lum and Abner. In this one, we also get Grady Sutton (was in some of the W.C. Fields films) and Zasu Pitts is "Geraldine". We also get to see Marni Nixon as "Angela Abernathy". Nixon dubbed in the singing voice for many of the singing stars of the 1950s and 1960s. In this story, the widow Abernathy (Nixon) is trolling for a husband and father for her horrible children. As usual, the guys are too busy helping out the local folks to make a profit at their own store. They end up with a horse, and then there's something about a kidnapping. None of this makes much sense, but we have fun going along for the ride. Very low key, safe, family entertainment. Also watch for larger than life Oscar O'Shea (plays the Squire); was in many of the great films, frequently background or uncredited roles. Directed by Malcom St. Clair, who also directed their "Two Weeks to Live". A fun way to knock off an hour and twenty minutes. Lots of puns, jokes, and witty thoughts.
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ksf-23 February 2015
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bkoganbing27 January 2014Although to our sophisticated coastal ears Lum And Abner seem woefully out of date, back in the day they were quite the radio hit with a group of devoted listeners in the red states. A whole lot of people knew and loved the residents of Pine Ridge, Arkansas like they were their own neighbors.
Radio stars Norris Goff and Chester Lauck brought Lum And Abner to the big screen and both certainly were able to sell their rustic personas to the movie-going public, they really looked the parts they voiced on radio.
In this story Lum is having woman troubles and is looking to propose to the girl of his dreams Zasu Pitts. But he feels he's not led a heroic enough life for her to consider him. Remember this is Zasu Pitts we're talking about.
In any event after trying to make himself a hero with partner Abner and nearly getting him killed, Abner screws things up by delivering the proposal to Constance Purdy, a widow with a few extra mouths to feed. When Purdy threatens Lum with a breach of promise suit, he might be forced to marry her.
I'm not going to go into the rest. Lum And Abner I've described before as gentle rustics that the red state took to their hearts. They were the forerunners of such television shows that Paul Henning later did like Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, Green Acres.
If you were a fan of those shows, you'll love Lum And Abner. -
mark.waltz3 April 2013Calling Zasu! Where are you when we need you? Why are you only on screen for maybe five minutes of this dimwitted comedy that could benefit by your deadpan humor? Lum and Abner, funny in small doses, need fine character comic support around them, and sadly this is what they lack here. Lum (Chester Lauck) loves spinster Pitts but is too shy to propose, so Abner (Norris Goff) suggests they make him a hero like those he reads in heroic stories to Pitts on their weekly dates. This leads them to a ridiculous scenario with Abner tied to the railroad tracks (like Penelope Pittstop) with Lum slated to rescue him and later a kidnapping scam gone wrong. Ultimately, Lum is slapped with a breach of promise suit when the heavyset widow with a ton of kids mistakes a letter given to her instead of Zasu as a proposal.
Corny humor couldn't bring on too many laughs so this is an iffy entry in the short-lived movie series based upon a popular radio program. One gag that works briefly is a con-man (Benny Rubin) selling everybody glasses that change their eyesight in unique ways. There were slightly better entries in the series ("Two Weeks to Live", "Dreaming Out Loud") that relied on the support of character players around them. Of the rest of the cast, only Grady Sutton (as a dimwitted clerk) offers any amounts of comic relief. Beyond Lum and Abner, Sutton and briefly Pitts, there's nobody else to provide much interest, so with the fabulous Zasu wasted in a cameo, this fails to please -
mkilmer21 December 2006This movie was made for a 1942 audience, and it is part of a celebrated radio duo, Lum and Abner, coming to film at their fans' request. The story is simple: Lum wants to impress a lady so he forces Abner to help him look like a hero. The story revolves around that, and with a few side elements: an obnoxious widow who wants to marry Lum and a horse race against a nasty local businessman between a horse for which Abner had traded their general store's delivery vehicle without first consulting Lum. And there is a bit about bad eye glasses worn for all the wrong reasons.
Yes, the movie is sophisticated in that respect, and it is not without its seams, but if you like goofy comedies from this era and I most certainly do you should enjoy this film. It is not the best of the Lum and Abner films, I don't think, but it is not markedly inferior. For my wife and I, it was an enjoyable view. -
Spuzzlightyear14 September 2005Lum and Abner were a radio duo popular during the 30's and 40's. Their success led them to make a series of movies featuring their characters (Chester Lauk plays Lum and Norris Goff plays Abner). Now, I have never heard their radio program, so I can't vouch on the quality of the show, but if the Bashful Bachelor is any comparison, then my God, America was REALLY starved for entertainment back then.
Lum and Abner run a general merchandise store in a town, Abner's trading addiction somehow gets him a horse which they train for the local horse competition (which a nasty businessman has also a horse in). There's also a plot of Lum trying to woo a local lady in town by trying to be a hero, some bit about glasses, cans keep getting falling down and so on.
It's plain to see that this is one jumbled mess, Some plots disappear for a while, making us wonder what happened to them, and this is totally unnecessarily longer then it needs to be (which tells me that they padded this story heavily.. why? WHY??) -
phlbrq5827 November 2020Famous Variety headline might have been written for this. I was unfamiliar with this comedy team. I watched for Zasu Pitts who is top billed but is very a supporting role. Its not really funny but interesting from a sociological perspective. Otherwise its a regional stereotype without wit. Or a minstrel show in white face. Or an expression of contempt by Hollywood for the deep south. I dunno. Some people seem to like it.
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farmsutah14 July 2006Lum and Abner's radio show was a slice of Media Americana representing the 30s. Their radio audience was used to 15 minute bites of the happenings at the Jot-em-Down Store and this is what the picture tries to recreate. There is little plot, 5-6 mini story lines within the film, and tons of whimsy. No, it is not Gone with the Wind, or Star Wars, but it is Lum and Abner brought to the cinema screen.
Listen to a few weeks of their 15 min radio show. Corny, but.. And then the movie will make sense of what the producers/directors were trying to capture.
And they did, very well for bringing Lum and Abner to life. -
dougdoepke30 May 2021Better than expected. Okay, it's no knee-slapper, but the chuckles keep coming as the two cornpone dimwits manage to stumble their way from one silly misfire to the next. What grabbed me most is how un-telegenic the cast is. It sure ain't Hollywood's usual glamor crowd. Good thing there's the lovely Currie to soften my eyes after all the un-lovelies, especially Lauck (Lum) who looks like me when I forget to shave and the wife threatens to leave. Nonetheless, the pacing's good, the antics non-stop, while the train bearing down on the camera gave me a real jolt. To me, it was a fun look at the past, especially when dimwit Abner looks into the phone receiver instead of talking into it and says to a puzzled Lum, "I've got to see who I'm talking to". Top that cell-phone Hollywood.
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Cristi_Ciopron16 February 2016A comedy with Lauck, Goff, ZaSu Pitts and Louise Currie, the installment about the quest for heroic deeds, the spectacles and the horse-race; the two shopkeepers go through an eyeglasses craze, and own a beautiful horse, the plot is neat, with mellow, harmless, gentle humor. A good show from the golden age. ZaSu could be piquant (so it was a bit unfair to have her considered as marrying stock for the oldster, though the player was younger than her), and her couple of scenes with Lauck are enjoyable. It's the milder Goff who gets the heroic behavior: chasing away the scoundrels, and riding the horse. These movies weren't radio with footage; the style they have given them was right.
The sense of place had made the show so loved, and it's conveyed here as well, although with a small but exquisitely managed cast, so it would be more rightly termed a sense of a world; it's not the life of a whole town, but mainly the lives of the two shopkeepers and their regulars. The life of the town is an occasional background, inasmuch as it concerns the two pals. The sense of the place is realized by focusing on the two main characters: so, more of a suggestion of a way of life, of a world; the values are ordinary ones: not wisdom, nor altruism, but immediate generosity, etc., which looks more convincing.
Goff's character is, in terms of action, both less and more effective than Lauck's: more gullible, easier to cheat, but also occasionally impressive in his achievements: scaring the scoundrels, chasing the interlopes, even winning a race .
If there's any folksy wit, it doesn't belong to the two pals; they don't outwit their opponent, but have other qualities. Anyway, they both come across as massively silly. Some pretend the show is about the clash of two types of wit; but the shopkeepers have none (well, generally, save for sending the sheriff to find the missing husband ).
The show is very likable, not its two leads, whose silliness comes across not as endearing, but annoying: they are honest, but imbecile, and innocence prevails here because the custom in show requires it. -
tedg11 December 2005Orson Welles didn't just plunk down in a sea of stupidity. That apparent stupidity had been working for decades on key elements of reflection in narrative. Here's a great example.
It consists of dumb hee-haw jokes. The two characters who are almost the whole show are two country bumpkins in a long tradition of bumpkin humor. They do stupid things and we laugh.
Simple.
But check out a few intelligent notions lurking beneath the surface. The jokes come from two reflexive notions.
The first is that everyone gets new, faulty glasses that distort their vision. Near and far are thrown out of whack. So the difference between what they see is mapped in a way to what we see and this distance between what makes sense to us and them.
The second idea is more cinematically reflective. One of these dopes is in love. He wants to be seen as a hero. We see his imagining at the very beginning as a movie in his head. We as viewers literally enter his internal movie before we enter the "real" one. The plot of the real movie involves him trying to make a fake movie so his love will see him as a hero
These aren't turned into egghead humor. I believe it significant that the writers probably had no intellectual intent in using these devices. But they are there, both of the then reinforcing each other as if the structural diagram were drawn first.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.