User reviews

Under the opening credits of this short comedy we hear a rousing rendition of "Off We Go, Into the Wild Blue Yonder," so perhaps it may come as a surprise to some viewers that after the credits are over we find ourselves looking not at a fleet of jet fighters or a team of heroic pilots but at a plump middle-aged man in a suit, who is peering into a crystal ball with comic intensity. This is humorist Robert Benchley on the verge of launching into one of his familiar nonsense lectures, this time answering written questions on various topics (allegedly) submitted by viewers. The subject matter ranges from the dangers of inflation to the use of elephants in warfare, but happily the questions don't matter at all, for they serve only as springboards for Benchley's patented brand of double-talk. The only wild blue yonder we're heading into is this man's delightfully disordered imagination.

Benchley fans will enjoy this entry in his long-running series, but some may be aware of a more melancholy undercurrent. No News is Good News was one of Benchley's last short comedies, made around the time he ceased writing his magazine pieces, privately complaining to friends that he felt he was repeating himself in his prose and in his screen work, too. In the most literal sense this is demonstrably true, as this film contains a brief passage lifted directly from Benchley's own 1936 comedy How to Vote -- although in fairness it should be added that, when these films were made, no one could have guessed that films made in 1936 and 1943 would one day be shown back-to-back on TV, revealing the repetition. Perhaps Benchley was getting a little tired of the pressure to be funny on demand, but if so it hardly shows in his delivery. In fact, far from being a retread of old material, No News is Good News offers a rather more modern (even Post-Modernist) approach to film comedy, at times inter-cutting Benchley's words with grainy newsreel footage in sharp edits that anticipate the later TV work of Ernie Kovacs and "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In."

At any rate, the main point here is that in this brief entry Mr. Benchley demonstrates he's still got the goods, comedy-wise, and, to paraphrase the man himself, I like to think the main points are the most important ones sometimes, don't you?

I have never understood the appeal of Robert Benchley's shorts he made for Paramount. I know he was popular the these films and his almost mythical Algonquin Round Table (a meeting of various famous writers, actors and all around smarty-pants folks). Perhaps sitting with Benchley and his friends and listening to them talk would have been great....but the films just leave me indifferent at best....and that's definitely true with "No News is Good News".

The film consists of Benchley supposedly reading questions from folks at home and in each case he simply blathers and doesn't answer any of the three questions in the least.

This is not a bad short....but 'not bad' isn't exactly a glowing endorsement. I just didn't enjoy Benchley and his glib comments...I just didn't find them funny.

No News is Good News (1943)

** (out of 4)

Weak Robert Benchley short has him "addressing" a movie audience and answering various questions that are asked of him. A couple of these questions deal with the evils of inflation and why elephants aren't used in war. As you'd expect, we have Benchley delivering his own style of comedy, which to me has always been hit and miss and this here is certainly a miss. In some ways it appears the comic was trying to be somewhat straight here because the comedy, while a miss, at times also seems like he wasn't even going for laughs. The movie remains mildly entertaining because you can tell there is an effort going on but the laughs just aren't here.