Cinema historians and comedy fans will be pleased to find this first volume of Hal Roach Streamliners now available for viewing even if the films themselves are erratic in quality and the video and audio quality are likewise variable.
The Production: 3/5
By 1941, Academy Award-winning producer Hal Roach had pretty much abandoned the one and two-reel comedies which had been his bread and butter since the silent era and embarked on feature films. He also began producing a series of what he termed “streamliners”: five-reel film featurettes which could play the lower half of double bills since they would always run less than an hour. Produced for about $110K apiece, these quickies usually brought it profits of $50 to $75K per entry making them highly profitable for Roach. Among the almost two dozen entries in the streamliner series were six featurettes starring a comic pair of rivals: Dorian ‘Dodo’ Doubleday and William Ames played respectively by William Tracy and Joe Sawyer. Slapstick comedies without much subtly, the six films contained in this first volume of streamliners all play off the same tonal formula: the sweet, innocent Dodo constantly trying to be upstaged and outwitted by the bungling Ames.
1941’s Tanks a Million gets the series off on a high note: blessed with a photographic memory, Dorian Doubleday, having memorized the Army manual for conduct and procedure once he’s drafted, is almost instantly promoted to staff sergeant, a promotion that greatly angers Willie Ames who got to the rank of sergeant over a long period of time. His constant attempts to sabotage Dodo in the eyes of deadpan Capt. Rossmead (Douglas Fowley) and the high-strung Col. “Spitfire” Barkley (James Gleason) always tend to backfire on him, especially once Doubleday’s squad, who had initially been adverse to the bookworm, realize that maintaining his rank will always be in their best interests. The hijinks are fun if somewhat lacking in invention (lots of pratfalls and sight gags), and the first film is blessed not only by its leading players but by familiar faces as Noah Berry, Jr., Frank Faylen, and Dick Wessel as Army grunts who come to admire their milquetoast Sgt. Dodo.
The rival sergeants are back in Hay Foot, a less inspired comedy with Doubleday and Ames as rivals for the hand of Col. Barkley’s daughter played by Elyse Knox (who was also in the first film playing a different character). The two men also have a third rival, Noah Berry, Jr.’s Charlie Cobb now also a sergeant. Cobb and Ames are also crack pistol shots. Doubleday knows everything about the assembly and proper technique for weapon firing, but he’s gun shy and a lousy shot. That doesn’t stop the mild misunderstandings that occur when mistaken shots find impressive targets that convince Barkley that Dodo is an ace marksman. The script seems a jumble of disparate ideas not well tied together, but its 47-minute running time means the minor amusements come and go painlessly.
Invention takes a further tumble in About Face where the two soldier-nemeses are trying to impress women (Marjorie Lord in Tracy’s case and Veda Ann Borg in Sawyer’s case) while the perpetually penniless Ames tries to leech off Doubleday’s recently won $100. None of the romantic complications are funny or interesting (brainless Jean Porter sets her own cap for Tracy much to Marjorie Lord’s disgust), and the slapstick seems very tired (an automobile deconstruction melee is the height of the movie’s meager humor). On the plus side there is the immortal Margaret Dumont as the starchily officious Mrs. Culpepper lifting every scene she’s in with her own brand of disapproving superiority while familiar faces like Frank Faylen and Dick Wessel turn up again this time as civilians and Charles Lane scores as the dyspeptic rental car agent determined to see the destructive sergeants get their comeuppance for their negligence.
Much better is the next entry in the set, 1943’s Fall In. To show he’s worthy of a promotion to lieutenant, Dodo is given a new pack of hillbilly recruits, personally selected by his nemesis Ames who was passed over for promotion. Doubleday wins the scruffy squadron’s trust when he pretends to be kissin’ kin from Kentucky, and their skills as marksmen make him look like a first-rate teacher on the firing range. The script inserts a spy ring plot with less than twenty minutes left in the featurette, and it all ends in a wild, overlong melee as the soldiers fight German spies masquerading as loyal American citizens, but the really clever sight gags staged by director Kurt Neumann (a room of domino chairs, flying targets aimed at Ames) give the film’s first half hour some distinction. Jean Porter returns as Dodo’s love interest (but as a different character without a lisp), and Frank Faylen likewise turns up again in the military ranks, this time as a captain. A young Arthur Hunnicutt has some funny lines as hillbilly Luke Hatfield.
The boys leave the security of Camp Carver for their first overseas assignment in Yanks Ahoy, the last of their World War II-set comedies (and it’s a good thing, too, since the battle helmets used in the movie are worn backwards by all of the soldiers). It’s a shipboard farce with Ames finally achieving his goal of getting his nemesis Doubleday busted down to private despite his having achieved some miraculous feats on his first naval voyage. There’s a new love interest for the duo – Marjorie Woodworth as nurse Phyllis Arden, but the focus of the shenanigans revolve around a suspected saboteur on board. Minor Watson is the ship’s captain, and Frank Faylen makes another appearance, this time as the ship’s quartermaster. Despite its being the longest of the series entries, it’s decidedly one of the lesser efforts.
Out of the Army and now trying to make it in civilian life in Here Comes Trouble, Ames and Doubleday are plying their trades as a policeman and a reporter respectively, neither with striking success. Doubleday’s boss Winfield Blake (Emory Parnell) is trying to expose the chief crook behind an underworld gang, not knowing that his own lawyer (Paul Stanton) is Mr. Big. Arranging to buy an incriminating diary from stripper Bubbles LaRue (Joan Woodbury) for $10,000, Doubleday manages to mess everything up leading to a frantic climax at the burlesque theater where Bubbles strips. Fred Guiol had directed the initial two entries in the series, and returns here for this one, but the plot is trite and not very funny and the slapstick escapades are too elongated for their slight entertainment value. Dodo’s photographic memory gimmick isn’t used to much good purpose, and Ames has less to do with the plot than usual. The Cinecolor in this installment gives this final Roach entry (there would be two additional films made in the 1950s for a different production company) its only distinction.
Video: 3/5
3D Rating: NA
The six films in this one disc set are framed at 1.37:1. They vary quite a bit in quality. Tanks a Million looks by far the weakest of the series with lots of dirt, scratches, and debris though its sharpness is better compared to entries like About Face. That film and the next one Fall In are overly bright with weaker contrast than the others though Yanks Ahoy has the opposite problem with some crushed blacks and unnatural dimming in certain scenes. Reel change markers can be spied in most of the films. The final one Here Comes Trouble is in the Cinecolor process which means flesh looks a bit on the orange side and blue tends to dominate the color timing. Each movie has its own chapter placement ranging from 3 to 9 chapters depending on the length of the movie.
Audio: 2.5/5
Each movie has a Dolby Digital 2.0 sound mix which Prologic decodes into the center channel. While dialogue is always understandable, there is a fair amount of hiss present in many of the films, and Tanks a Million also has pops and crackle to distract the listener. Music and sound effects are combined with the speech to make solid soundtracks, but age has taken its toll on these elements.
Special Features: 0.5/5
The Thelma Todd-Patsy Kelly Comedy Collection trailer (2:09)
Overall: 2.5/5
Cinema historians and comedy fans will be pleased to find this first volume of Hal Roach Streamliners now available for viewing even if the films themselves are erratic in quality and the video and audio quality are likewise variable.
Matt has been reviewing films and television professionally since 1974 and has been a member of Home Theater Forum’s reviewing staff since 2007, his reviews now numbering close to three thousand. During those years, he has also been a junior and senior high school English teacher earning numerous entries into Who’s Who Among America’s Educators and spent many years treading the community theater boards as an actor in everything from Agatha Christie mysteries to Stephen Sondheim musicals.
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