April Antics: Robert Benchley

RODNEY BOWCOCK: We round out our focus on comedy short subjects with something completely different than what we’ve reviewed before. Robert Benchley is a favorite among us at the Picture Show, his essays and appearances in films always welcome here. We turn our attention to a trio of his MGM short subjects.

SAMANTHA GLASSER: Robert Benchley was a member of the Algonquin Round Table and a friend to such eggheads as Franklin P. Adams, Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott and Donald Ogden Stewart. He was Harvard educated and worked on the Harvard Advocate and the Harvard Lampoon and performed in theater productions. His style of comedy is more subdued and witty than the slapstick comedy we've been spotlighting. It foreshadowed observational comics who find themselves frustrated by the awkward moments of life.

How to Sleep (1935)

RB: A simple premise. Benchley lectures on four parts of sleep: Causes, methods, avoiding sleep and waking up. That’s all there is.

SG: Benchley's blanket is one of those felt-like flat ones with the silky ribbon edge. I had many of these blankets growing up, and eventually the edge would become frayed or disconnected, but I don't see them in the stores anymore.

RB: Sounds like the sort of thing that you might find available from Vermont Country Store with the catalog description of “Remember when blankets did what blankets do best?”. I love that stuff. Dream job writing those descriptions. Give me a call, VCS. Let’s talk.

SG: Benchley, wearing very loud pajamas-- no wonder he can't sleep, creeps down to the kitchen for a midnight snack. I can say with certainty that even during my pregnancies, once I brushed my teeth, I didn't eat anything else for the night. I could not relate to this scene at all. Further, all the dishes are uncovered and ready for consumption. If he didn't eat them overnight, they would be dry and spoiled by the morning! He had quite a fancy spread, from cold lobster to stuffed chicken, and there was no woman sleeping in his room with him. Did he make all that food himself?

RB: I’d imagine that a maid or servant prepared the dinner in this case. But you make an interesting point. In old movies, if a refrigerator of food is pictured, it’s going to be chock-full of uncovered foods. Think about Dagwood’s late-night refrigerator raids in the Blondie series. You see the same thing here.

SG: The short uses animation to illustrate what Benchley believes happens to the brain during sleep and to show the sheep he is counting in an attempt to slow down his brain.

RB: I tried to figure out where that animation came from, but couldn’t quite figure it out. I suspect that the Harmon-Ising Studio whose Happy Harmonies shorts were being distributed by MGM at the time were responsible for it, but I’m not entirely sure.

SG: This was intended to be a Pete Smith short, a takeoff on a sleep study performed for the Simmons Mattress Company. Smith was sick, so Benchley got the job. The company was happy with the result, but the Mellon Institute who conducted the study was not. The success of the short resulted in Benchley's instructional series.

Today we are inundated with parodies done more successfully and forcefully than this one. It doesn't have a lot of replay value. 2.5 stars.

RB: Years back, I screened this short for an audience of casual classic movie fans, and they were completely perplexed by it. In spite of our inundation with mocumentaries ranging from The Office to the films of Christopher Guest, they just didn’t get it. Landed like a sack of bricks. I can see why in retrospect. Any enjoyment comes from the familiarity of Benchley to the viewer. Based purely on delivery, this is lacking. 2.5 stars.

The Romance of Digestion (1937)

RB: These plot descriptions are kind of weird to write. This is a simple lecture on the topic of

biting, chewing, swallowing and digesting.

SG: Motion Picture Reviews wrote, "It is a proof of the cleverness of Robert Benchley that he can hold an audience at all with a subject which properly belongs in a physiology text-book. Only those who enjoyed the diagrams of the digestive tract in the 'dear old school days' will fully appreciate this film."

RB: “Over our patrons’ heads,” complained Harland Rankin of the Plaza Theatre in Tilbury, Ontario. A. Irwin over at the Palace Theatre in Penacook, NH was able to muster that the film was “mildly amusing”. Florence Wigton at the Wigton Theatre in La Grange, IN seemed to have a personal axe to grind with Benchley. “Terrible. Put Benchley on the bench…absolutely no entertainment”. I wouldn’t go that far, but this seemed too similar to other shorts that he did better (like the one we just watched). 2 stars.

SG: I found the title of this short to be more amusing than the film itself. 2 stars.

A Night at the Movies (1937)

RB: This one is something different as Benchley and his wife head out for an evening at the movies.

SG: It seemed strange to me that a married couple went to the movies so often without their spouse, especially in those days. Before TV, did people catch movies during the day to kill time?

RB: I think that’s exactly what happened. It’s sometimes difficult to think of movie-going as a thing that people casually did when bored. Now if someone goes to a movie, it’s usually an event tied around some big budget superhero film. And when you can wait two weeks and catch it on streaming, it’s arguable if you can really blame them.

SG: I related to the scene when the tall man sat in front of them and blocked their view. I have had that happen several times during silent films, which means I'm constantly rocking back and forth to read the title cards. I also related to the panic you feel when you're in a quiet room coughing uncontrollably, something made even more mortifying because of Covid.

RB: I kind of related to Benchley’s attempts to be accommodating to everyone, while they seemed to do whatever they want. I know it’s not really like that, but these days it often seems to feel that way.

SG: Movie fans will be delighted to glimpse the movie posters and star portraits on the walls.

RB: Whenever I see a theater lobby in an old movie, I always salivate at the decorations and also long for the experience of visiting one of those grand movie palaces. This one is more of a neighborhood theater, but one that I’d still love to visit for a day.

SG: This short is stacked with fun character actors including Tiny Lipson as the man who sits in front of them to block their view, and several silent actors like Flora Finch, King Baggot, Claire McDowell, and Gwen Lee.

RB: We always get a thrill out of watching things and catching the bit players that would pick up a day’s work here and there. Nice job on spotting so many!

SG: The Film Daily called it, "A very funny adventure which depicts the experiences of Mr. Average Man and his missus at the movies, done in that inimitable Benchley manner."

RB: The neighborhood theaters had a good time with this, likely because the subject matter was of such familiarity to the audiences watching it. “Grand fun and patrons enjoyed it enough to comment,” said M.R. Harrington of the Avalon Theatre in Clatskanie, OR.

C.L. Niles at the Noles Theatre in Anamosa, IA agreed. “Benchley at his best. Pleased our audience immensely.”

“Try this and you’ll want more like it,” said Pearce Parkhurst of the Brandon Theatre in Brandon, VT.

SG: Prior to shooting this entry in the series, Benchley was named honorary fire chief in his hometown of Worcester, Massachusetts, so between scenes he was parading around in his finery, and director Roy Rowland even instructed the prop man to start a small fire for him to extinguish. They liked to have fun making these shorts.

RB: This was Benchley’s biggest screen success since his breakout film, the aforementioned How To Sleep. It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Short Subject of 1938 (it lost to The Private Life of the Gannets…which was actually filmed in 1934). I thought it was a lot of fun, and I could’ve easily watched this sort of thing for an additional reel. Three and a half stars.

SG: This was my favorite of the three shorts, not only because it was about a topic I am very familiar with, but because the ending gave me an audible chuckle. Three stars.