Famous Boners

A rather quirky short subject on famous boners made by people who had a hand in changing history--or so the narrator says.

One of the most painful mistakes was a writer who slaved for seven years hand-writing his manuscript, only to have a cleaning woman mistaking the paper-wrapped parcel on the floor as something to throw into the fireplace. He immediately sat down to rewrite his book on the French Revolution.

Another shows a prisoner sentenced to 230 years making an escape from prison in a guard's civilian clothes. He makes the mistake of thumbing a ride from a black limo which turns out to be inhabited by two police officers.

A case of smashing a sabotage ring occurs when a man mistakenly puts an envelope in the mail that has the FBI suspicious. Reason for the suspicion seems a bit off kilter to me--but anyway the ring is exposed and all because of a silly mistake made on the envelope.

The prisoner escape and the true life spy melodrama have only moderate interest in the way they're presented. A passing grade is all I can give this one.

Here's an amusing episode of John Nesbitt's THE PASSING PARADE series for MGM, in which he speaks about famous examples of errors throughout history, from Sir Isaac Newton boiling his pocket-watch instead of an egg, to German spies who, intending to blow up the Erie Canal failing because of a missing "S".

John Nesbitt was a grandson of Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth. He went to work as a broadcaster for NBC in 1933, and began his "Passing Parade" segments for the network in 1937, and it ran as part of various shows for the next dozen years. Eventually, MGM picked up the series as an occasional short subject, produced and narrated by Nesbitt. By 1949, Nesbitt had produced about sixty shorts. He died in 1960, two weeks short of his half-century mark.

Despite the salacious title, "Famous Boners" is not a porno film. Instead, it's a short that talks about three very dissimilar cases which all have a common thread...mistakes. The first involves Thomas Carlyle's book about the French Revolution, the second a dopey prisoner who escaped and was soon recaptured and the third involved a spy ring in the US during WWI.

None of these famous mistakes were earthshattering but they all were mildly interesting. Not a great short but a decent time-passer if it comes on before or after something you really wanted to see on TCM.

Famous Boners (1942)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Another highly entertaining entry in John Nessbitt's Passing Parade series, this one looking at famous mistakes people make. These could be missing the top step and falling or timing how long to boil an egg but end up boiling the watch. The film centers on three events including a sabotage ring in the U.S. that gets busted over a simple mistake. A man serving five life sentences makes a successful escape from prison but they tries to hitch a ride. The first and most painful story is about a struggling writer who spends seven years writing a book on cheap paper. One day he falls asleep and a maid throws the paper into fire but the writer gets back up and rewrites it out of memory. The book would become The French Revolution. This is a very fun entry in the series as we get some nice drama in the story. I enjoyed the writers story the best because it was downright dramatic seeing the maid throw all that work into the fire. Very painful to watch as I'm sure anyone will be able to feel his pain. The two other stories aren't as good but they too are still fun. Mickey Rooney's father, Joe Yule, appears in the film.