Topic: A Miss in a Mess (1949) - Vera Vague w/Stephen Roberts and Lois Austin

[Paul Pain]

A MISS IN A MESS is little more than a hot mess.  This has to be one of the darkest Columbia shorts I have ever seen.  Overall, there is more good than bad, but as a comedy it's more bad than good.  This short is a remake of the lost Harry Langdon short, HIS MARRIAGE MIX-UP.

Vera Vague is a funny lady; this is a fact and proven again here.  The co-stars Stephen Roberts and Lois Austin do very well and also provide some laughs; this is good. What is not good is the darkness of this short that is more dramatic than funny in the second reel and the tasteless gags involved.  Jules White has created the ugly love child of FRIDAY THE 13TH and ALL THE WORLD'S A STOOGE, and the results are not too good.

Stephen Roberts has a fantastic performance as Vera's fiancée, who happens to be a dead ringer for an escaped axe murderer in the same city.  He is well-suited to this role and performs both parts with ease and relish and even some cheese.  These roles were a springboard for Stephen to eventually to be a regular actor in dramatic productions, particularly Alfred Hitchcock programs.  Later in life he even portrayed FDR in the TV miniseries IKE: THE WAR YEARS.

Lois Austin was Barton Yarborough's ex-sister-in-law, having been married to Yarborough's brother.  So, Vera has now squeezed in her ex-husband and her ex-husband's ex-sister-in-law.  Lois mostly did bit roles in movies and was a workhorse bit role actor in the early days of television.  She is solid as well as the gossip-type aunt to Vera.

The plot is the issue.  The axe murderer angle dominates the short.  Of course he gets confused with Vera's husband, and of course Vera runs off with the killer instead of her husband.  Here it turns dark as there is no comedy, although Jules White apparently got a sadistic laugh out of having a noose around Vera's neck and having it attached to a car tire so that she's getting jerked back-and-forth.  Later the killer gets a hold of the aunt too.  The only funny bits from when Vera runs off until the end are Stephen's cheesy performance and the man with the tray on his head.

Now, this dramatic angle is, as I have redundantly reiterate, dramatic.  As a dramatic scene, it is one harmed by the poor attempts at comic relief aside from the aforementioned man with the tray.  In this light, it is a bit of a two reel thriller instead, but it still falls apart because of the early plot holes, in particular... Vera has been dating this guy long enough to marry him, so he can NOT be the axe murderer who just freshly escaped.

5/10

[metaldams]

I like this short.  As far as the macabre nature of the short, I think the ax killer playing it so over the top is what makes everything work.  It lends the short a cartoon feel whereas if he played the role more straight, I’d fear more for Vera’s character.

Nah, this short is just fun silliness to me due to the way it’s played.  The noose gag with the tire is definitely one I didn’t see before.

[Umbrella Sam]

I guess I’m in the middle between you guys as far as my opinion goes. For the most part, I do like this short. Vera again shows that she was a good fit for Columbia comedy with physical gags like the one in her room where she’s jumping around. I also really like the gag at the beginning where she’s looking for the ring only to get distracted by a sandwich. I also really like Stephen Roberts’s performance as the axe murderer. When he first arrives, his delivery is pretty monotone, but it’s clearly meant for comedic effect, and I do think it works. As the short goes along, he takes on more of a Snidely Whiplash style personality; someone who’s just evil for the sake of being evil, and he clearly is having a lot of fun with it. I especially love near the end when he’s yelling at the tree.

That being said, one area of this short does seriously affect my enjoyment of it: the noose gags. I can enjoy dark humor to an extent; I can see the humor in watching Bugs Bunny kill an audience member in RHAPSODY RABBIT because he won’t stop coughing. I think the key to doing dark humor is to do extravagant situations that wouldn’t happen in real life, such as that. And, yeah, I suppose you could argue that happens here, but I just cannot tolerate watching people choking (I had the same issue with COLD TURKEY). It’s just so uncomfortable and drawn out. And this is the climax too, so it’s kind of a major part of the short. So, yeah, that does affect my enjoyment quite a bit. It’s still a fine short otherwise.

7 out of 10