The Meanest Man in the World

I was always a fan of JACK BENNY and his radio shows and later his appearances on TV after his movie career waned. But while I enjoyed some of his films tremendously (GEORGE WASHINGTON SLEPT HERE, CHARLEY'S AUNT, THE HORN BLOWS AT MIDNIGHT), I found THE MEANEST MAN IN THE WORLD to be a huge disappointment.

Even though it runs less than an hour, it's a dud. Poor PRISCILLA LANE has a hard time convincing me as Benny's patient sweetheart that she'd have anything to do with the character Benny plays. He's a softy, with a heart of gold, but discovers that people pay more attention to him as a lawyer if he appears to be mean and ruthless in his dealings. So much for the ironic flavor of the plot.

Thankfully, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson is on hand for a few laughs and there are a few clever moments in the script, but most of it just lays an egg--a big one. If you want to enjoy Benny in films, I'd recommend GEORGE WASHINGTON SLEPT HERE as one of his better comedies.

I was amazed when I saw this picture. After having seen The Horn Blows at Midnight, I had assumed that all of Jack Benny's pictures were pretty stupid and that his talent only extended to television and radio. Boy was I wrong.

This very short movie (57 minutes) is outstanding and I have nothing negative to say about it. Benny is actually NOT the Meanest Man in the world but perhaps one of the nicest in the film. This is a real surprise because he is a lawyer (sorry to all you lawyers reading this). However, he finds that if people THINK he is mean and heartless his business will pick up considerably! If it comes on TCM or you can find it on video, give it a try. You're bound to love it (unless YOU are the meanest man in the world).

"The Meanest Man in the World" has a misleading title ... at least for audiences here in Britain where, if a person is called "mean", it means that he's a cheapskate. When I saw that this film starred Jack Benny (who usually played cheapskates), I assumed that the title referred to his legendary tightwad antics. I was wrong. In "The Meanest Man in the World" (based on a play by George M. Cohan), Jack Benny plays a nice-guy lawyer who's broke all the time because he hasn't any clients. When he picks up the phone in his law office to make a call, the Accounts department of the phone company is on the other end to turn off his service for non-payment.

This movie raises an interesting point: namely, that nice people are often much less successful than S.O.B. types. When nice-guy Benny decides to pretend to be a meanie, his law practice starts getting more clients. But in order to become a real success, Benny will have to become a real meanie. Is it worth it?

This movie is basically a character study. It isn't a flat-out comedy like most of Benny's starring films, so don't expect too many laughs. Eddie Anderson ("Rochester") plays Benny's factotum assistant here, but their relationship here isn't quite like Rochester's relationship with "Mister Benny" in their radio show.

There's one funny gag. Benny's one-man legal practice is in an office building full of law firms. When an ambulance drives past the building with its siren blaring, Benny hands his business card to Rochester and orders him to follow that ambulance. As Rochester rushes out into the hallway, all the doors of all the law offices open, and all the lawyers come running out with their own business cards!

Anne Revere (a talented actress whom I never liked, somehow) is wasted here in a poor role. The romance between Jack Benny and Priscilla Lane isn't believable, especially as Lane is far too young for him. "The Meanest Man in the World" was a popular stage play, but this film version has very little to recommend it. I'll rate this movie 3 points out of 10, only because I'm a Jack Benny fan.

YouTube has this old chestnut. 'Meanest Man in the World'is a few minutes under an hour, and a good thing it is. The story is silly, yet Jack Benny, albeit wooden, remains the Jack Benny we know. And that isn't bad. And it's good to see Priscilla Lane as the love interest. She does a good turn when she's tipsy at a bar towards the end of the film. Then, there's Edmund Gwenn plays gleefully plays a meanie. And for once Anne Revere playing a secretary and not someone's suffering mother. But Rochester has star billing and the best quips. At a time when Blacks had walk on roles or a dance or song number as relief in a film, he plays the 'wise' Benny side kick who puts his finger in the eye of silliness, and manages to get Benny out of hot water of his own heat. An obvious boy gets girl film. And a pleasant hour of viewing, during the dark moments of the war against Nazi Germany and militaristic Imperial Japan.

... and this one is no exception.

In this amusing, if brief, comedy from 20th Century Fox and director Sidney Lanfield, Jack Benny stars as Richard Clarke, a smalltown attorney who moves to NYC in order to impress his prospective father-in-law. His girlfriend Janie (Priscilla Lane) can't wait to get married but she's unaware that Richard's law practice is going no where. It isn't until he starts acting cutthroat and mean that things start to become lucrative. Also featuring Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Edmund Gwenn, Matt Briggs, Anne Revere, Margaret Seddon, Helene Reynolds, Ralph Byrd, Edward Gargan, Hobart Cavanaugh, Lyle Talbot, and Tor Johnson.

This seemed like a filmed version of a radio play, as almost all of the humor is verbal, and maybe that is to be expected as Benny was so big in radio at the time. That's a nice change of pace when slapstick seemed to rule the day in film comedy of the period. Benny and Anderson are a terrific team, naturally, and they play off each other like the seasoned pros they were. I also liked Anne Revere in an atypical role as Benny's bored, underpaid secretary.