"Restless Knights" features some good bits and although it lacks energy, it doesn't fail to entertain up to the wine cellar scene. Louis Silvers should have had to pay royalties to the estate of Italian opera composer, Giuseppe Verdi. That title music sounds like it came straight out of
Aida, Act 2. Nevertheless, it is appropriate for any scene which features three zany characters of noble blood. The opening scene in the midst of a tempest (How Shakespearian!) features the great Walter Brennan in an early role as the father of three young fellows who still sleep in their parent's bed. Its a great scene with a well-executed triple slap. Geneva Mitchell is appropriately regal in temperament as the Queenie and Stanley Blystone as the Captain of the Guard makes his first of many appearances in the shorts.
The second scene begins promising as the boys enter the royal court accompanied by some of the worst trumpeting ever recorded. The boys have some great material here. The whole "parisites" dialogue is really funny. The wrestling match is entertaining and is used as a distraction for Prince Boris (George Baxter, who was born a parisite) as he abducts the Queenie. Curly's joke about trumping the Queen is marvelously funny, unless you aren't into card games. Of course, the boys are blamed for the Queen's disappearance and are arrested and sentenced to death. Curly's "an arrow escape" comment is the best part of this sequence of dialogue. The boys end up escaping thanks to some distracting female eye candy. Thus ends the entertaining portion of this short.
The final scene in the wine cellar is just bad film-making, and its not that funny. The short ends prematurely with no conflict resolution. There is a goof in that scene that has not been documented on the filmography. Can you find it in the last scene? I'll keep it to myself for a while to see if anyone finds it.
All in all, this is a decent short, but I won't watch it much. There are just too many others that are better in every way. The wrestling scene is pretty much the only thing worth revisiting.
Verdict: 6 pokes. This short gets a
.