HIPS, HIPS, HOORAY (1934)

The comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey was quite popular in the 30's, going strong right up to Woolsey's untimely death (of kidney disease) in 1938. Today, however, they've been mostly forgotten. Assuming from some of what I'd read that they were mostly a poor man's Marx Brothers, I avoided their movies on the rare occasions when one would crop up on Turner Classic Movies. Now that I've seen one, I must admit I'm sorry I've ignored them for so long. As is the case with most Marx Brothers movies, the plot isn't the most important element, but here it is anyway: Two con men who sell flavored lipsticks wind up working for a cosmetics company (Maiden America, which we see on an office door in the first shot of the movie and which gave me my first chuckle) and wooing two female employees, one an executive and one a model. The boys accidentally wind up with a briefcase filled with stocks and bonds and the cops think they stole it, so they go on the lam at the same time that a nationwide car race (in which the beauty company has a car) is going on. There is also an investment banker hanging around who's supposed to be working for Maiden America but is actually working for a rival company and scamming our heroines. The end of the race serves as a climax for the contest, the scam, the problem with the cops, and the romances.

Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey do remind me of the Marxes--there's a letter dictation scene right out of ANIMAL CRACKERS--if Harpo talked and was medicated, and Groucho was less self-assured, but they also seem a bit like Abbott and Costello, two average guys trying to make a living, get through an adventure by dumb luck, and get a couple girls along the way. I liked the fact that both men were taken seriously as romancers; frequently, Abbott and Costello have girl friends, but I could never buy that any woman in her right mind would be carnally attracted to either one of them. The same goes for the Marxes (except Chico--Harpo always loved the chase, but I thought he wouldn't quite know what to do with the girl once he caught her; Chico definitely would). Wheeler and Woolsey aren't particularly good looking, but their banter and their physicality help to make their affairs believable. It's a pre-Code movie and there is a lot of lusty innuendo, including naked models with their breasts strategically covered by make-up bottles, and a fair amount of kissing and touching between the couples. There are even a couple of "accidental" kisses between the two men. A mildly randy song, "Just Keep on Doin' What You're Doin'," crops up a few times and is now stuck in my head. There is also some Freudian stuff with Wheeler's ever-present banana and Woolsey's cigar. Another plus is a lot of improbable special-effects humor, most of which (including a race car with helium wheels) comes off pretty well. There's even a Kansas twister five years before OZ. Thelma Todd and Dorothy Lee are the women. Ruth Etting (the singer Doris Day portrayed in LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME) has what amounts to a cameo as herself singing a song in the opening scene; George Meeker makes a good slimy bad guy; Bobby Watson has a small bit as a flamboyant dance director. Perhaps the best thing is that the movie is short and the individual comic bits never go on so long that they drag (as a few of the later Marx Brothers bits did). Even if a particular bit wasn't working for me, I knew they'd move on quickly. I'll be watching the TCM schedule for more of this team. [TCM]