The Big Parade of Comedy

A better title would have been "Our Big Stars and Some Special Effects "... Much of it is just film run backward and sight gags... ie the train scenes at the beginning... smoke going back into the stack, and when the handcart gets out of the way at the last second at the bottom of the mountainside, watch for the big puff of sand right BEFORE the cart moves.. not after. This review would probably be more interesting for those who haven't seen the specific films highlighted here. It's a whole bunch of short clips from their big films. Written, directed, produced by Robert Youngson, who even wrote the lyrics to a lot of the accompanying (bad) songs to the clips. Melodies by Bernard Green... must have taken them about eight minutes during the lunch hour to come up with those songs. Gotta mark this one down... you can skip it if you've seen most of the films involved.

This is a film you can't go wrong with. MGM compiled a salute to the comedy that MGM brought to the big screen over a 40 year period. You'll see its biggest stars performing and they did boast they had more stars than there are in heaven.

Some were admittedly shoehorned in. Case in point Charlie Chaplin who had his own United Artists at the time. He makes a guest appearance in a Marion Davies film.

Or WC Fields who toiled for Paramount and Universal. He did one memorable Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield.

The comedians share equally with MGM stars of drama in some of their comedies. Case in point Clark Gable in Too Hot To Handle and Spencer Tracy in Libeled Lady. And of course William Powell and Myrna Loy.

You can't go wrong with The Big Parade Of Comedy.

This picture is the prime example of how MGM ruined some of the greatest comedians in film. It had the best writers, best directors, best cinematographers, and they mistakenly thought dropping comedians like the Marx Brothers and, most lamentably, Keaton, into their studio films and expected superior results. They forgot, or refused to acknowlegde, that there was such a a thing as a Keaton comedy, or Laurel and Hardy routines. Look at the cast list here; how many real comedians are there? Very few. We get comic bits from mostly straight actors who had the chance to say or do something funny in an MGM movie. Are there laughs? Sure, and if you're looking for comedy you can find it here. If you're looking for a Big Parade of Comedians, you'd better go elsewhere.

Youngson must have been the last real movie ghoul, making a living by cutting up old films into virtual guitar picks. Good bad or indifferent, the only reason for inclusion in this compilation seems to be he could get his hands on a print and then chop chop chop, funny or not. It reminds me of Glenn L. Martin delivering a plane to the Army in WW2 (the B-26 aka The Widowmaker) which kept killing its crews. Martin explained that it met the contractual specifications. This film meets somebody's contractual specifications and made what's called a 'nice show business dollar', but it is a pile of junk whose stink is even more loathsome considering the talent which gets ripped off.

Normally I would just leave this alone except for the fact that this film contains the most perfunctory and execrable film lyric of all time. In the song, which is introducing a segment on Robert Benchely, the lyric goes- "Robert Benchley was a funny man/ A funny man was he". Certainly a new low in the lack of imagination department. Robert Youngson was a cheap-son-of-a-bitch/ a cheap-son-of-a-bitch was he. Of course Youngson didn't hire a lyricist but wrote the 'lyrics' himself, just like he wrote (oh, that narration would be rejected by Hallmark as soporific drivel, and it just goes on and inanely on), produced., directed, did the visual effects and titles, himself. His wife did the research. This was just one in a series of compilation films he did coming from the short film assembly lines which died in the early 50s. Insteed of going in to TV he did this.

Now, I believe Youngson has been completely superseded by the age of film preservation and the like of Turner Classics and various DVD distributors though I guess he'll have his product in 99¢ bins for a long time to come. And not a moment too soon.

Funny stuff, but arranged without much rhyme or reason, by compiler Robert Youngson. Obviously, the first limitation is that the clips are exclusively from one studio. Moreover, there is no real attempt to present the very best of what was available at MGM. "The Big Parade of Comedy" is neither a definitive look at MGM's comedy pictures, nor does it present a comprehensive look at any one comedian.

Narrator Les Tremayne is helpful identifying performers who may not be familiar to modern audiences - along with top-billed stars Clark Gable and Greta Garbo, who co-sizzled for real in "Susan Lenox" (1931). Most haphazard is the tacking on, without explanation, of some Dave O'Brien comedy shorts. The material is good, but should only be considered a sample. Seeking the original works is imperative.

***** The Big Parade of Comedy (9/23/64) Robert Youngson ~ Les Tremayne, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Dave O'Brien