Caught Plastered

Another big hit for the comedy team of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, Caught Plastered is set in a drugstore the boys take on to save a nice old lady from the clutches of the local charming crook, played by Jason Robards Snr.

All the usual elements are here - wisecracks, double takes, a song and dance number, the perky Dorothy Lee - and the film is really rather good. The plot takes advantage of the fact that Prohibition was still very much in force, and the opening titles have a cartoon train rushing through the landscape.

Highly recommended.

This was only the second Wheeler & Woolsey film I managed to watch when it aired on American Movie Classics back in the '90s (The first was Kentucky Kernels). All I remembered from back then was a duet of Wheeler and Dorothy Lee singing while the latter was drunk. This was made during both Prohibition and before the Production Code was strictly enforced so gags are depicted that probably would have not passed muster just a few years later. It's largely during the last 30 minutes that things really take a hilarious turn but there's plenty of amusing scenes throughout. So on that note, I recommend Caught Plastered.

Tommy Tanner (Bert Wheeler) and Egbert G. Higginbothom (Robert Woolsey) are out-of-work vaudevillians. They encounter a crying old lady on the tram. She recently lost her husband and is about to lose the family drug store. The guys offer to help her save the place. She has 30 days.

Apparently, Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey are a vaudevillian comedy team back in the day. That's what they look like and act like. I'm sure that they have a full stage act of setups and punchlines, one after another. It's fine, but it's not so exciting cinematically. They need to add more physicality to their bits.

This may be one of the best of the Wheeler&Woolsey comedies. Their particular brand of broad comedy has regrettably gone out of style in the 21st century and their movies are seldom shown nowadays - except on good old reliable TCM. Like their other films it is loaded with puns and outlandish circumstances and you have to be a fan of that genre, or at least a fan of W&W.

No need to recap the plot, such as it is. It's the usual improbable scenario, this one about coming to the aid of an old lady with a failing drug store and turning it into a howling success. It features Jason Robards Sr. as the villain, who has an uncanny resemblance to his son, especially the voice and mannerisms. there are even a couple of tuneful but long forgotten songs. Whether you're a fan or not this is a good comedy in any era.

******** - Website no longer prints my star ratings.

CAUGHT PLASTERED (RKO, 1931), directed by William A. Seiter, is a rare find on television these days. It stars the once popular but highly forgotten comedy team of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, Wheeler as the dizzy character with a talent for singing and dancing; Woolsey the one with the glasses, cigar and wisecracks like comedian Groucho Marx, but nobody can top the old Grouch. Wheeler and Woolsey play a couple of drifters who help out an old woman (Lucy Beaumont) save her drug store from a crook (Jason Robards Sr.). Dorothy Lee, who appears in almost all of the W&W comedies, once more plays Bert's love interest. They supply the catchy tune, "I'm That Way About You."

I enjoy this movie mainly because I remember it being the very first Wheeler and Woolsey comedy I've seen (back on Turner Network Television in 1989). Some people might refuse to watch these guys today on the basis that they don't know who they are. Unfortunately, because their comedies seldom made the late show lineup on commercial television stations back in the 50s, 60s or 70s, W&W never became immortal as the Marx Brothers or Laurel and Hardy, but when given a chance, one can see how good their comic timing can be and how good these two guys are together. True, their latter films in 1936-37 were not up to par, but if anyone wants to see them at their comedic best, watch either CAUGHT PLASTERED or what many consider their funniest outing, HIPS, HIPS HOORAY (1934). For now, CAUGHT PLASTERED is worthy for film buffs of 1930s comedies. Silly to be sure, but quite funny. Great attention grabber: Check out to the opening credits with cartoon train rolling down the track with the wheels in the persona of Woolsey's eyes and glasses, and that wacky music intro. Wheeler and Woolsey were amusing as comedy teams go, and worth rediscovering today.

Formerly presented on American Movie Classics prior to 2000, it's presently shown, but not often enough, on Turner Classic Movies. (**)