RKO in using Wheeler&Woolsey first put them in their big budget films where they were used as comic relief. They were in Rio Rita and then in the original operetta for the screen Dixiana. The Cuckoos is along those same lines, being based on the Kalmar-Ruby musical The Ramblers which ran for 289 performances in the 1926-1927 season on Broadway.
Oddly enough the boys took the place on Broadway of another comedy team that would soon be on the big screen, Bobby Clark and Paul McCullough. Seeing Wheeler&Woolsey in their respective roles I can see how Clark& McCullough could have done this on Broadway.
Like most of the musical comedies of the Twenties the plot was an airy bit of delightful nonsense. Wheeler&Woolsey are a pair of fortune tellers who run afoul of gypsies in Mexico led by Mitchell Lewis who don't like them chiseling in on their racket. At the same time Lewis develops a particular dislike for Wheeler chiseling in on his time with Dorothy Lee.
Lewis and the gypsies are hired by the mysterious Baron played by Ivan Lebedeff who wants heiress June Clyde kidnapped for himself. June likes aviator Hugh Trevor instead, who wouldn't, but her aunt Jobyna Howland and holder of the family purse strings thinks Trevor's the fortune hunter. This mind you with Woolsey panting after her like Groucho does with Margaret Dumont.
It's the team of Wheeler, Woolsey and Trevor that's off to rescue the heiress from the gypsies. The boys have some nice comic bits here, my favorite is them liberating a keg of real beer from customs inspectors as they go back to Mexico. Remember this is Prohibition and many jokes concerning the Volstead Act and its consequences abound in The Cuckoos.
By the way the title specifically refers to not just Wheeler&Woolsey, but to a pair of cuckoo clock birds who are quite inebriated who the film cuts to before one of the three color sequences.
For the most part The Cuckoos is just a photographed Broadway musical just like The Marx Brothers The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers. Still that for me is an added attraction.
Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby got two hit songs from the score of The Ramblers that appeared here and later in the biographical film about the songwriting duo Three Little Words. All Alone Monday and I Love You So Much still retain an enduring popularity to this day.
Watching Wheeler&Woolsey try and imagine Eddie Cantor teamed with Groucho Marx is the best way to describe their comedy. Knowing that fans of Eddie and Groucho can appreciate Wheeler&Woolsey and might be tempted to see them.
If they do, I really suggest The Cuckoos as a good place to start.
