| Pop Culture Gadabout | ||
|
Saturday, July 15, 2006 ( 7/15/2006 12:37:00 PM ) Bill S. "GOOD PITCHERS DON'T TURN UP EVERY FOUR YEARS LIKE PRESIDENTS, YOU KNOW!" – Because I was primarily familiar with comedian Joe E. Brown as a.) a yowling caricature in more than one cartoon and b.) the deliverer of moviedom's perfect punchline, I was curious to see Alibi Ike, which recently had a wee hours airing on TCM. The last of a trilogy of baseball comedies featuring the big-mouthed comic (the second, The Mighty Elmer, was the basis for Bert Wheeler's Cowboy Quarterback), the 1935 comedy centers around Frank X. Farrell, a yokel from Sauk city who becomes a star pitcher for the Chicago Cubs. Like the cowboy hero of Quarterback, Frank is an amiable lug with a healthy head of self-esteem. He's good at his game and knows it – and comically chafes when skeptics like Cubs manager Cap (the ever avuncular William Frawley) expect him to prove it. In the wrong hands, the character could be obnoxious, but Brown invests his hero with enough "aw, shucks" attitude to keep us rooting for him. Frank's biggest comic flaw, though, is contained in the movie's title: the man's a never-ending source of apologies and excuses. Late for his first day of practice, Frank blithely explains to Cap that his "calendar was wrong." He's incapable of telling a straight story, even when he's done something right. As Cap notes, "I bet that guy apologizes to his fork every time he takes a bite out of it." Frank's quickly christened Alibi Ike by his teammates (repped by regular character mug Roscoe Karnes), who get a charge out of setting him up to see how many stories they can coax out of the guy. In the most prolonged storytelling scene, Frank is followed to a jewelry store where he's gone to buy a ring for his girlfriend Dolly (Olivia de Haviland in her debut movie role – already acting very Melanie-like); when he's caught by his teammates, "Ike" (who had earlier stated proudly that he'll have nuthin' to do with women) verbally trips all over himself trying to explain it all away. Ike's propensity for fabrication, of course, will get him in trouble when a group of big city gamblers calling themselves The Young Men's High Ideals Club attempt to muscle in on his winning streak. When one of the gamblers' henchmen is seen handing Ike a packet of cash, Cap views his protestations of innocence with understandable disbelief The gamblers kidnap him the night of a big game and take him out of the city, but Ike escapes and gives 'em a merry comic chase, our country boy miraculously finding his way back to the stadium even though he's still a babe in the city. His lyin' ways also get him in Dutch with his gal-friend Dolly, who overhears him b.s.ing the fellas about his confirmed bachelorism. ("I have no intention of spending the rest of my life with a man who apologizes for me every other word," she says as she breaks off their engagement.) Eventaully, it all works out, though we're pretty sure our man will never fully abandon his personal treasure trove of excuses. Ike is a passable little comedy, primarily made enjoyable by Brown's palpable desire to please. There's some mild, familiar slapstick (boy + girl + canoe = hi-larious capsizing), but the bulk of the gags revolve around Frank being Ike. Even Brown's trademark siren yowl is kept to a minimum in this flick – done once near the beginning and once near the end, as if scriptwriters Ring Lardner (from whence came the original story) & William Wister Haines wanted to just get the yelling out of the way and concentrate on Lardner's story. Brown does some nice physical bizness with his comic wind-ups on the pitcher's mound, though we never for a moment accept a scene where he beats and overcomes his kidnappers. The entire gambler subplot, in fact, is so familiar and undercooked that you can't help wishing the movie'd kept its focus on Ike's relationship with his teammates and girl instead. Still, I suspect that the movie provides a decent flavor of Joe E. Brown, the comic leading man: more recognizably human than the familiar caricatures would have you expect, less schtick-y – at least in a vehicle like this. After viewing it, I'm curious to see what else the wide-mouth comic could do as a leading man. Per TCM's schedule, an even earlier Brown comedy, 1931's Broadminded, is scheduled to run in August. From both the title (and presence of Bela Lugosi in the supporting cast), I'm guessing we'll get to hear more howls from ol' Joe Evans Brown in this 'un. I've already set the TCM site's email reminder for it . . . Labels: obscuro comedies # | |
|
|
