Reviews & Columns |
Reviews DVD TV on DVD Blu-ray 4K UHD International DVDs In Theaters Reviews by Studio Video Games Features Collector Series DVDs Easter Egg Database Interviews DVD Talk Radio Feature Articles Columns Anime Talk DVD Savant Horror DVDs The M.O.D. Squad Art House HD Talk Silent DVD
|
DVD Talk Forum |
|
Resources |
DVD Price Search Customer Service #'s RCE Info Links |
Columns
|
|
Broadminded
But 30 years before Brown was one of the most popular solo comedians in America. The former professional baseball player, circus tumbler, and vaudevillian arrived in Hollywood at the dawn of sound, where his rubbery face, colossal mouth (Brown's trademark) and impish voice proved a good match with the emerging medium of talking pictures.
Brown, however, is no longer popular for his starring films the way contemporaries like W.C. Fields and the Marx Bros., or even Wheeler & Woolsey are. Arguably, Brown was more popular in films of the early 1930s than these other comedians, and he was positively beloved during the Second World War as a tireless advocate for and entertainer of American troops. But there doesn't seem to be all that much interest in Brown's early career nowadays. No legions of fans, no exhaustive biographies.
Broadminded (1931) is a fairly typical if lesser Joe E. Brown vehicle from First National/Warner Bros., where he was under contract the longest, and it exemplifies the kind of silly, even nonsensical style of humor then in vogue. He and the movie are reasonably amusing, though it's also no comedy classic. Many who watch it today are drawn by its supporting cast, notably two very talented comediennes who'd both be dead within a few years: Thelma Todd and Marjorie White. Also in the film, in his first major role after starring in Dracula, is Béla Lugosi.
And I have my own, personal interest in the film. My paternal grandmother, then 21, on a whim left her home in rural Michigan to spend several months in sunny Southern California. She got a job at either the Huntington Hotel or Castle Green in Pasadena, I forget which but, regardless, it was where Broadminded was shot and she wound up working as an extra in a scene featuring Brown, Todd, and Lugosi. I think she's visible in but a single shot, though I have no way to confirm whether that's actually her.
Our story opens in New York, where Mabel Robinson (Margaret Livingston) is hosting a strange costume party. All the guests, male and female, are dressed as infants, where they drink gin out of baby bottles and are threatened with being sent "off to bed" for misbehaving. Ah, Pre-Code Hollywood. At the party Mabel announces her engagement to Jack Hackett (William Collier, Jr.), her less-than-enthusiastic boyfriend, while Jack's friend, tireless carouser Ossie Simpson (Joe E. Brown), looks on. The police break up the rowdy entertainment, and the next day Jack's father (Holmes Herbert) orders Ossie, whom he believes to be an upright, respectable lad, to escort Jack on an extended vacation where he is to avoid drinking, smoking, gambling and, especially, women.
The two drive across the country to California. En route they run afoul of a hot-blooded Latin, Pancho (Lugosi!), and come to the aid of Constance "Connie" Palmer (Ona Munson*), whose car has broken down. At a luxury hotel in Pasadena Jack and Ossie are reunited with Connie, who's visiting with her disapproving, patrician Aunt Polly (Grayce Hampton) with diminutive, perky best friend, Penelope Packer (Marjorie White).
Later in the story Mabel turns up, armed with love letters written by Jack, hoping to dissuade Connie from marrying him. Ossie comes up with a scheme involving an old actress friend, Gertie Gardner (Thelma Todd), whose boyfriend just so happens to be the insanely jealous Pancho.
Brown's appeal seems to have been rooted in his wholesome, everyman appeal. He wasn't brash and garrulous in the manner of other popular early-talkie comedians such as Jimmy Durante. Brown's roots as a circus performer and his unusual facial features resembled a circus clown sans makeup, which made him especially popular with children. At other times his pantomiming and voice make him appear like a ventriloquist's dummy come to animated life. (Brown's style is a lot more Charlie McCarthy than Harpo Marx.) In Broadminded Brown's basic sincerity and decentness shine through even though he's basically playing a freewheeling party animal.
Mostly though, Broadminded is more interesting for its supporting performances. Béla Lugosi did his share of comedies, but usually he played a sinister red herring, a butler or aristocrat, usually drawing on his Eastern European exoticness. Here he's asked to play a hot-blooded Latin, and Lugosi is uncharacteristically way over the top, though that's exactly what the part calls for. It's an amusing performance, especially in the way Lugosi's accent, mostly Hungarian with Spanish flourishes, becomes almost incomprehensible. Expressing outrage: "Farst you spoil my shore-cake, then you rune my r-r-r-rear in, and now you steal my garl!"
Thelma Todd and Marjorie White were two of the brightest, sexiest comediennes of the early 1930s. Todd was a slinky foil for virtually all the top comics of the day, including the Marx Bros. (in Monkey Business and Horse Feathers), Buster Keaton & Jimmie Durante (in Speak Easily), and Wheeler & Wolsey (Hips, Hips, Hooray!). She was most associated with Hal Roach productions, shorts in which she starred with ZaSu Pitts, or opposite Laurel & Hardy or Charley Chase. In Broadminded she has a fine scene pretending to be Connie, melodramatically reacting to Mabel's threats.
Marjorie White, as Connie's friend Penelope, was tiny (4'11") but a real fireball of energy, fast-talking and street-wise. She had leading roles in several early talkies, including Happy Days (1929), Sunny Side Up (1929), and Just Imagine (1930), a movie I sure wish Fox Cinema Archives would get around to releasing. She's probably best remembered today for the Three Stooges' first Columbia two-reeler, Woman Haters (1934), the one entirely in verse, in which she plays Larry's no-nonsense bride.
Both Todd and White died far too young, within months of one another. Todd, 29, was found dead in her car inside a garage, apparently the victim of carbon monoxide poisoning, though whether it was accidental, a suicide, or possibly even murder has never definitively been answered. White died at 31, six months earlier, from injuries sustained in a car accident in which she was a passenger.
Video & Audio
The black-and-white film is presented in original 1.37:1 format, and considering its age looks good throughout, including several fairly ambitious process shots. The mono audio, English only with no subtitle or alternate audio options, is also fine. The disc is region-free. The lone Extra Feature is an original trailer, promising audiences that they'll laugh their heads off.
Parting Thoughts
Mildly funny but still worthwhile for its cast and some Pre-Code naughtiness, Broadminded is Recommended.
* Ona Munson should not to be confused with actress Osa Massen, as I did for years. Or, for that matter, Ish Kabibble.
Stuart Galbraith IV is the Kyoto-based film historian and publisher-editor of World Cinema Paradise. His credits include film history books, DVD and Blu-ray audio commentaries and special features.
|
Popular Reviews |
Sponsored Links |
|
Sponsored Links |
|
Release List | Reviews | Shop | Newsletter | Forum | DVD Giveaways | Blu-Ray | Advertise |
Copyright 2024 DVDTalk.com All Rights Reserved. Legal Info, Privacy Policy, Terms of Use,
Manage Preferences,
Your Privacy Choices
|