So This Is Harris

An Oscar winner for Best Short, this has to be seen to be believed. The premise-- that the liver-lipped, frogfaced, three-note-range singer-bandleader Harris is The Sexiest Man Alive-- becomes the tongue-in-cheek excuse for an endless array of sexual double entendres, usually delivered by women in sheer clothing in improbable locations such as a golf course ("Watch your niblick and be careful with your putz!"). The star isn't actually Harris but Walter Catlett, a sort of Tony Randall type, as a man nearly driven mad by the inescapable popularity of Harris among all females (and the occasional effeminate male). Comedically, this short starts over the top and just keeps going, and it led to a feature (Melody Cruise) which is nearly as wild and hilarious, as well as to writer-director Sandrich's subsequent career directing such films as Top Hat.

"So This is Harris!" was the Oscar winner for Best Comedy Short. And, while the film is reasonably pleasant, it's hard to imagine that none of Laurel & Hardy's shorts were even nominated that year....and they made perhaps their best short, "Busy Bodies" in 1933. This would be corrected in 1934 with the duo's win with "The Music Box"...but it's just hard to believe the Oscar folks preferred "So This is Harris!".

The film begins with Phil Harris singing on the radio...and Walter (Walter Catlett) at home complaining to his wife how much he hates Harris' singing...mostly, it seems, because women inexplicably find Harris sexy! Later, Walter goes golfing and gets paired up with Harris...and Walter doesn't realize who his partner is. What's next? See the film...as it's now posted on YouTube.

This film doesn't just feature Phil Harris singing. Much of the dialog is sung throughout the short as well. Also, Harris makes an amazing putt--and probably did this himself, as he was an expert golfer in real life.

So is it any good? Well, it's okay...which isn't what you'd expect from a Oscar winner.



By the way, at the very start of the film you see a couple in the back of a limo. While not credited, the guy sure looks like Gene Raymond....just before he hit stardom.

Poor old Walter Catlett can't escape the crooning of Phil Harris. His young wife positively swoons as he sings on the radio, and when he seeks some refuge on the golf course, well who just happens to stray onto his green where some comedy antics ensue? Of course, the former man doesn't recognise the latter man until they hit the clubhouse afterwards, but then things only get more frustrating for Catlett as they try out a sort of double date that doesn't quite turn out as planned! There's a shower scene in this short celebratory feature of Phil Harris that, whilst not exactly Hitchcock, is quite surprising given the times. As are some of the ladies on the golf course whose clothes are a little more revealing in the sunlight - in a gently chauvinist fashion, but otherwise this is really just a light-hearted vehicle for a star and his foil that plays a little to stereotype as it showcases Harris's amiable family-friendly style of entertainment. It's a reminder of what was popular, and also considered inoffensive, at the time and taken in that spirit is watchable enough.