Honestly, I think it’s a good thing that we decided to go through the entire filmography of Laurel and Hardy instead of just stopping at Roach because it means that we get to see a film like this. JITTERBUGS was a film that kept my attention most of the way through and one that I found legitimately entertaining.
Which is not to say that it’s entirely perfect. None of the songs are particularly memorable and there is the occasional missed comic opportunity (Stan looking at the “Out of order” sign and not making a gag out of it comes to mind-think the “Elevator out of order” gag in BLOCK-HEADS).
Honestly, what I really like about this film is the story itself. It kept me interested and I kept wanting to see what was going to happen next. Bob Bailey (best known for playing the title character on the radio drama, YOURS TRULY JOHNNY DOLLAR) and Vivian Blaine both get to play well-written characters who have difficulty trusting each other. Bailey plays a con man-type character, but he’s one who still does show signs of emotional conflict throughout the film, so it’s not like he’s a totally unsympathetic jerk who gets the girl in the end anyway. While it is true that there are no Roach stock players, it actually is kind of interesting to see them put up against these more straight gangsters, kind of like how it’s interesting to see them interact with a fantasy world of stock players in BABES IN TOYLAND. It’s different, sure, and I still do think that the Roach players were the ones who truly belonged in most Laurel and Hardy films, but different doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad.
Actually, that’s kind of the reason I like this film. It’s different, but still good. Getting to see Oliver act as a character as part of a plan is actually really interesting to see, a chance to see what he could do outside of the “Oliver” persona (as opposed to ZENOBIA, where he kind of drifts back and forth between his Oliver persona for no real reason). They even get some really good emotional scenes out of him. The scene where he tells Vivian Blaine that Bailey has abandoned them is done very well, better than any of self-pitying scenes MGM used in AIR RAID WARDENS to try to get the same effect.
There are obvious signs, too, that the filmmakers here have an understanding of the Stan and Ollie personas, right from the instant Oliver first says “well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into” at the beginning of the film. I genuinely enjoyed a good amount of the comedy scenes in this film. Among the comedy scenes I really enjoyed were the donkey pushing the cart, Ollie trying to explain the letter plan to Ollie, the rocks falling on to Ollie when he tries to knock out the gangster, Stan not understanding when he’s being flirted with. Heck, I even enjoyed the whole dancing bit that’s used as a way to knock out the other gangsters. While I was pretty indifferent to Stan’s whole drag act through most of the film, that was actually a really fun way to incorporate it.
Now, of course, there still are elements that are not entirely representative of Stan and Ollie’s comedy, the most obvious being Stan and Ollie’s two-man band, which was a type of gag Buster Keaton might of used (the director, Malcolm St. Clair, co-directed some of Keaton’s classic silent shorts). I’m still fascinated by that and some of the other untypical gags, though, and there very rarely are scenes of the entire world simply treating Stan and Ollie as brainless idiots. Again, this is something that’s different, but something that’s still good.
In the end, JITTERBUGS is no WAY OUT WEST or SONS OF THE DESERT, but is still a well-paced comedy film with an interesting story and funny moments that makes me want to check it out again some time in the future. Sure, I do wish that the post-Roach films were more like the Roach ones, but the fact that a film like this exists shows that there were ways to work around the system and provide a good balance.
8 out of 10
