The Day of Rest

It's Sunday and everyman Joe Doakes (Robert Benchley) is trying to rest. He tells us that nobody rests on Sunday. I don't know who he's talking about. I guess that the world is speeding up and people do stuff on the Lord's day which may be something new. He does some gardening or more realistically, battling the neighbor over trash and roots. He does some junk clearing and he's going to hurt his back that way. He's driving the family into country and ends up in a traffic jam. He's playing badminton and playing it badly. I don't see the family going to church. It's all mildly humorous without any actual laughs.

Robert Benchley tries to enjoy his day of rest. However, his wife, Helen McKellar, can't bear to see him lying in a hammock.

It's one of the many shorts that Benchley did for MGM and later Paramount, an offshoot of an act he first did in college in which he lectured confusedly on a topic, any topic, in a manner in which he made clear that he didn't know what he was talking about. He won an Oscar for one of them, HOW TO SLEEP, in between his writing -- for THE NEW YORKER -- and appearances in features in which he maintained the same befuddled character. These shorts were invariably amusing, and this is no exception.

Day of Rest, The (1939)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Pretty good Robert Benchley short has him relaxing in his lawn chair when he tells viewers that he thinks part of the country's problem is due to people not using Sunday as a day of rest. He then shows us a family where the father tries to sleep in on Sunday but his kids, wife and maid all do things that wake him up and get him out of bed. We then see how one should try to relax but how this is often impossible as one good thing could turn into stress. One example is a quiet lunch in the country, which is an idea shared by many so you end up in a traffic jam. THE DAY OF REST is actually one of Benchley's better shorts with MGM as we get several nice laughs throughout the 9-minute running time. One of the best sequences happens when Benchley decides to work in his garden and comes across a root that just happens to lead over to his neighbors tree. Another funny gag is when he first wakes up and goes to read the Sunday paper only to find a couple problems. As usual, Benchley's humor is about as dry as they come, which might not sit too well with some. I think this is one of the more acceptable shorts because there are some nice supporting characters so that Benchley doesn't have to carry the entire thing on his own.