Cockeyed Cavaliers

Similar to Laurel and Hardy, Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey were a (lesser known) comedy team of the 1930's. "Cockeyed Cavaliers" is the only one of their movies I've ever seen. It's a lively, fun little movie, full of obviously deliberate anachronisms featuring Wheeler and Woolsey as a couple of ne'er do wells in 17th century (?) England, who get mistaken for the King's physicians.

The movie has an imaginative musical opening, and several musical numbers scattered throughout (The Big, Bad Wolf was great fun.) Wheeler and Woolsey get to join in the song and dance routines, and they even find romance along the way. There are also a fair number of laughs around Woolsey's character being a kleptomaniac who steals - literally - anything and everything, up to and including horses and carriages. It's a little difficult to accept that Dorothy Lee (who played Woolsey's love interest) could have been mistaken for a boy - but I guess that's just part of the movie's quirky charm.

I'm just not much of a fan of the comedy teams of this era unfortunately. (No - not even Laurel & Hardy.) But, still, this is an enjoyable enough movie to pass some time with. Fans of the genre if this era would rate this much higher than I do. (6/10)