Review of The Bohemian Girl

Have been a fan of the Boys for decades but had missed this one until a new TV channel specialising in "film history"/Goldie Oldies launched a L&H season and gave me the opportunity to view this one. Never again! Every single one of the "gypsy" scenes could have been omitted with no loss whatsoever (archaic/dated/tiresome drivel now but I cannot really believe that people paying to see this at the local cinema in 1936 would have found these scenes anything other than trite, poorly performed kitsch. The "songs" are only memorable for being worse than the one just before - no memorable melodies, delivered by third rate singers trying to compensate for their lack of singing ability by lots of eye work, hand clasping and upward gazing (probably asking (like me), "How much longer do I have to endure this?") I would love to say that the bits without the dreadful gypsy scenes are then pure gold, but I cannot. There are some quite nasty sides to this picture (child abduction (and therewith, of course, centuries of anti-Romany prejudice/hatred coming through), adultery (and Oliver's hen-pecked husband routine just comes across as simply disturbing/alarming in the way it is played here) plus what seems a little too much enthusiasm for flagellation (including (potentially) of a young woman towards the end!) and the very final scenes of torture being inflicted to raise a (very cheap) laugh at the very end). The portrayal of the Boys as conscious, deliberate thieves/pick pockets also jarred ill with me as one of their key features was always that of innocence/naivety which is retained here overall but cannot be squared with their resolution to set off and deliberately separate people from their belongings (again some anti-Romany feelings creeping in?) Even taking this out, however, and just leaving the Boys on their own and creating havoc, the film STILL has little to offer! Stan's routine of filling wine bottles towards the end is just awful, lacking in timing, innovation and simply flat, I found. Most of the other sketches are fairly flat as well and, overall, I must say that this is probably THE L&H picture which caused me to laugh least of all the ones I have seen (although I believe there are still some stinkers for me to live through in the coming season ("Swiss Miss" from what I have heard?) I believe the Boys were pretty useless when it came to money and were totally ripped off by Hal Roach and others, meaning they did not earn a penny when their films were shown (in black and white) on American TV in the 1950s (where, of course, they were adored and helped to win a whole new generation of fans of their work) and it would seem they were also sometimes pretty useless at choosing which films to appear in as well (and this one should certainly have been left to second-/third-raters from whom one would not expect anything better, like Abbott and Costello or The Three Stooges). Still, I am at least grateful that for every "The Bohemian Girl" there is a "Way out West" and "Sons of the Desert" and that, overall, the gold far outweighs the drivel/dross.