The Rainmakers

Another chapter in the Wheeler and Woolsey collection of oldie but goody comedies. The local farmers are standing around wondering what to do about the lack of rain for their crops. Of course, if that many people are going to suffer, there might be someone who will GAIN from the lack of water. There's usually a pretty strong, coherent story under all the vaudeville gags we get from them, and this one is no different. (My favorite is Peach O Reno! ) Lots of visual, slapstick gags, as well as clever one, two, and three liners. Of course, Rainmakers has the required runaway train. With a love story thrown in too. Costars Berton Churchill and George Meeker. It's also interesting, in that it works in the history of the dry, dustbowl years, where there was just no water for the farmers. A fun 78 minutes, if you're watching the Turner Classics version. Directed by Fred Guiol, who had directed a whole bunch of the Wheeler & Woolsey films.

If you've not seen a picture with Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, this is as good a place to start as any. They were Broadway stars who moved to the Big Screen at a time when people would go to the movies to be entertained, not to take a flimsy message from simpleton screenwriters. What I mean, I missed this era, but it's available to me and to you on DVD or TCM or anywhere you can find it.

Yes, it's worth a look, I think. In the Rainmakers (1935), Wheeler and Woolsey... well, they save the day despite the best efforts of the Bad Guy Who Owns the Town. And it's nice to see Bert romantically paired with Dorothy Lee, as she plays a delightfully unconstrained character in these films, and she does it so well.

The musical number was a bit long for my wife's taste, and I thought the train scene at the end could have been pared down a little, but this was a fun movie!

This is a polished and entertaining W&W vehicle that is nothing remarkable but proves that their mostly forgotten films hold up more or less as well as that of most other screen comedy teams' from the era. Woolsey (who doesn't do a lot for me) is a supposed rainmaker called in desperation to a drought-plagued agricultural town; en route he picks up Dust Bowl farmer Wheeler, whose naif act is still pretty amusing.

The complications are ordinary but diverting enough (the highlight being the only song, a drolly staged duet for Wheeler and their usual leading lady Dorothy Lee) until we get to a long, elaborate runaway train climax that's good if not great--it's Buster Keaton-esque, with the big diff that Keaton would have avoided back-projection in favor of visibly real, risky stuntwork. Anyway, this is no forgotten classic but a fun outing for a team that shouldn't be so entirely neglected today.

The farmers of Lima Junction are desperate for rain. Local businessman Simon Parker (Berton Churchill) suggests taking water from a lake, but it would cost $50k. Con man Roscoe the Rainmaker (Robert Woolsey) has a fake rainmaking machine and recruits hopeless farmer Billy (Bert Wheeler) after his house blows away. The town's banker Henry Spencer has invited the Rainmakers. Margie Spencer (Dorothy Lee) is his daughter and bank teller.

It is the comedy team of Wheeler & Woolsey. Their comedy is what I describe as mildly humorous. They are certainly forgotten nowadays and nowhere as famous as other legendary names. That's what we have here. It is mildly humorous. The laughs are not that big, but there are enough of them.

This film, coming late in the Wheeler and Woolsey cycle, is often dismissed as poorly written and executed, although it is actually very enjoyable, fast-paced, memorably written, and sees the two boys on good form as ever.

Dorothy Lee (in her last appearance with the team I think) is as sweet as ever, in her usual role as ingénue and love interest for Bert Wheeler. They have a song, as ever, this time set around an orange tree which drops its fruit whenever someone tells a lie. Lee said it was her favourite of their numbers, and it is certainly one of the best.

A long set-piece with out of control locomotives seems a bit misplaced in the second half of the film, but is still funny. The double entendres and quips of earlier films in the series have been irradicated by the Hays code and the move towards family decency, but this film remains sharp and funny.