Ora, Pílulas!

The boys are partners in a pill company but they battle constantly. So their lawyer finally decides to settle it by a wrestling match. The loser has to serve the other as a valet. But what they don't know is that there is a take-over bid by a bankrupt company waiting to take advantage of their bickering.

Silly plot but there are few funny routines. As always Wheeler and Woolsey are breezy and at ease together. Supporting cast includes Esther Muir as Woolsey's wife, Marjorie Lord as Wheeler's girl friend, Paul Harvey as the take-over executive, Russell Hicks as the lawyer, Patricia Wilder as the vamp, and Pat Flaherty as the thug.

I love comedies from the early years of cinema--such as the silents and those that immediately followed. And while I have learned to enjoy and appreciate most of them, I have never really understood the success of Wheeler and Woolsey. While their routines are very energetic, I just have never found them to be very funny or talented. I know that there are a small number of die hard fans out there somewhere that think I am an imbecile because I said this, but with so many funny comedians out there (such as Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers and many others), why watch team that is at best second-rate?

The film concerns a pill manufacturing company owned jointly by the two guys. However, in this film they can't stand each other and constantly argue. And the arguments are terrible for business and drive the employees nuts. Finally, after years of this, they decide to settle the problem--they will wrestle and the loser must be quiet and serve the other like a slave for one year. At the same time, there is a subplot involving some crooks trying to take advantage of Wheeler and Woolsey, but the two are so busy arguing that they never notice. Whether or not this reflected on the relationship the two had with each other outside of films, I have no idea.

While the idea for the film is pretty original and the film never lacks energy or enthusiasm, once again like the other films of theirs I have seen, the jokes tend to be pretty corny and often fall flat. Definitely a "poor man's version" of Laurel and Hardy or the Marx Borthers, though perhaps not as talentless and annoying as the Ritz Brothers.

The film, by the way, was directed by Eddie Cline--a veteran comedian and director of the silent days. If you ever have a chance, try to watch one of his early films--the ones I have seen were wonderful and he is a forgotten slapstick star.

I watched On Again Off Again in its entirety the next to last film that the team of Wheeler&Woolsey did for RKO in the Thirties before realizing that we never did find out what the pill these two were marketing was all about. Just what did it do for what ails you?

Whatever it did these two partners are constantly quarreling. Woolsey invented it, but all he could do with it was sell it in a medicine show with wife Esther Muir doing a cooch dance. Along comes Wheeler he gives it a pink color and as Mary Poppins says a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. Now the pill sells and these two found their own drug company.

But they quarrel every day and it drives their attorney on retainer Russell Hicks nuts. In the end they come up with wacky scheme to dissolve the partnership which I won't go into. Also rival Paul Harvey who's own drug company is going bankrupt seeks to merge with one or both of them to save his assets.

Can't go much further, the schemes that Bert and Bob come up with as well as the other principals in the cast will drive one wild and it ends as one wild picture, especially the last 20 minutes or so.

On Again Off Again is a good introduction the comedy of Wheeler&Woolsey.

Veteran Comedy Director Eddie Cline leads Wheeler and Woolsey in one of their best vehicles. They pair off as partners in a pill manufacturing company who can't stand each other and wrestle each other for the company, with the loser to be the other one's manservant for a year. The duo's timing and delivery is far better suited to the Marx-Brothers-like exchange of insults liberally admixed with physical abuse than the odd sort of friendship they demonstrated in some of their other vehicles.

Cline starts the show out with a wonderful long sequence in which the two do a dance and abuse each other. Cline, whose career included Keaton's first solo shorts and the best W.C. Fields comedies would watch his career slowly begin to topple about now. If you get a chance to see this one, made while he was still at his peak, do so.

As a Wheeler and Woolsey fan, I have run across a few people here and there who cannot stomach W&W at all. While the duo can be an acquired taste in general, I would imagine if this movie was my first exposure to W&W, I probably would not have looked too much further into their work. This is not a good vehicle and they seem a little tired in general. Possibly explained by Woolsey's health issue mentioned in the trivia section.

We start with the concept of the duo as enemies. Half the fun of a Wheeler and Woolsey film is watching them get out of trouble together. They occasionally stab each other in the back, but the underlying friendship is always there. From the start of On Again, Off Again, they are at odds, and their cinematic chemistry suffers as well. The comedy seems more forced than madcap.

The plot has them owning a big pharmaceutical company, but since they argue all the time, nothing gets done. They decide to wrestle for ownership of the company. Loser becomes the winners servant for a year. There have been worse premises, but this just goes nowhere.

Luckily, their next and final film, High Flyers, would end the duo's film career on a better note. Woolsey seems more like himself in that one and does some sublime dancing.