DUMMY ACHE is arguably the funniest short film Edgar Kennedy made in his run of short domestic comedies which ran from the early 1930's until his death in 1948.Interestingly,the film is heavily reworked from a silent comedy short,DUMB DADDIES(1928),starring Jewish comedian Max Davidson.Kennedy himself had a part in DUMB DADDIES as a policeman,but takes over the lead in the remake.Despite this being a remake of a silent comedy,the pacing does not suffer and the confusions and misunderstandings over the 'dummy' of the title are adroitly handled and are fresh and inventive.DUMB DADDIES itself is featured on one of Robert Youngson's silent film compilations of the 1960's,LAUREL & HARDY'S LAUGHING 20'S(1965),and the director,Hal Yates(not Leslie Goodwins,who does a fine job on DUMMY ACHE),would later direct many of Edgar's short comedies in the 1940's.DUMMY ACHE was nominated for an Oscar for best short of the year,but lost out to OUR GANG's BORED OF EDUCATION.
2 Reviews
Never Let Your Wife Take The Car
boblipton8 December 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Edgar Kennedy is going to play golf. Wife Florence Lake calls a taxi for him, since she needs the car. This leads to Edgar becoming suspicious and following her. He finds her in a room with a man and Lucille Ball. There's a scuffle, a shot fired, and when the smoke clears, the man is on the floor, dead. Edgar rushes in to save his wife, locks her and Miss Ball in a closet, takes the corpse, which has been placed in a wicker case, and rushes to dispose of it to save his beloved wife. Only it's not a corpse, it's a dummy; Florence has been rehearsing a play without telling Edgar.
It's another of the beautifully timed and executed comedy shorts in Edgar's long-running THE COMMON MAN series for RKO. It was Oscar-nominated for best two-reel short, and deserved it. So did many other of Edgar's shorts.
It's another of the beautifully timed and executed comedy shorts in Edgar's long-running THE COMMON MAN series for RKO. It was Oscar-nominated for best two-reel short, and deserved it. So did many other of Edgar's shorts.
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