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High Blood Pleasure (1945) - Schilling & Lane

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Offline Paul Pain

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https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0146881/

HIGH BLOOD PLEASURE was the first film for the Schilling & Lane comedy team.  I warn you that the first reel of this one is in poor condition.

Gus Schilling got his first major Hollywood attention from Orson Welles, who saw him in a performance.  Welles was so impressed that he followed Schilling to Florida in order to offer him a position in his Shakespearean troupe.  Schilling even appears in five of Welles's films, including CITIZEN KANE.  Sadly, Schilling passed from a heart attack when he was just 48 years old.

Richard "Dick" Lane was a Vaudevillian comedian who is best known for being an announcer for wrestling, roller derby, and midget car racing in the Los Angeles area... he's even in the Roller Derby Hall of Fame!  As an actor, Lane is best known for his roles in Columbia's Boston Blackie films.

From the very first second, you would be convinced that Gus and Dick were long-time partners of comedy.  I have never seen two comedians work so well together with no prior experience.  This is important for the flow of the entire short.  If it wasn't obvious from the first 2 minutes, Gus always plays a nervous-type character and Dick is always the conniving boss-type.

This short relies mostly on verbal humor, and this short is almost overstuffed.  Puns and jokes, especially death jokes, just rapidly flow one right after another non-stop until the finish.  I have my opinions on which other comedians or comedy teams would do well in this short, but it requires an ability to handle an extremely fast pace.  The ending even makes a good use of the "angry person fire at someone's arse" gag.

The short has a decent plot and is a rework of a lost Collins & Kennedy short, JUST SPEEDING.  The cast is all solid, especially Vernon Dent as the macabre surgeon.  We get a host of other Columbia standards: Cy Schindell, Symona Boniface, and more.  Overall, this is a really funny short from start to finish and is worth your time.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2021, 08:29:47 AM by Paul Pain »
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Offline metaldams

This short is excellent and has a FROM NURSE TO WORSE fast paced feel to it.  It helps the comedians, especially Schilling, are pretty high strung.  I can easily picture The Three Stooges handling this material, all the way down to poor Johnny Kascier getting knocked down in the hallway multiple times.

Some of the more domesticated stuff Columbia does works occasionally, but this fast paced stuff with screwy comedians really is what Columbia does best.  The pacing of this thing just zips along from one bit to the other and I highly recommend checking it out.  Hopefully other shorts in the series will be this good.
- Doug Sarnecky


Offline Paul Pain

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This short is excellent and has a FROM NURSE TO WORSE fast paced feel to it.  It helps the comedians, especially Schilling, are pretty high strung.  I can easily picture The Three Stooges handling this material, all the way down to poor Johnny Kascier getting knocked down in the hallway multiple times.

Some of the more domesticated stuff Columbia does works occasionally, but this fast paced stuff with screwy comedians really is what Columbia does best.  The pacing of this thing just zips along from one bit to the other and I highly recommend checking it out.  Hopefully other shorts in the series will be this good.

Unfortunately, there's only one more short left in this series that is available for us to review.  Only the last one of the Schilling & Lane shorts is lost, but only 3 are available on YouTube.
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Offline Paul Pain

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I have never before seen (on here) such a lack of interest in discussing any comedy team.
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Offline HomokHarcos

I've finally finished my overtime, I'll get to these comedies. I really look forward to watching them.


Offline HomokHarcos

This feels quite different from the other Columbia comedies. Strange, since it was directed by Jules White. It's actually not very violent, and feels more like a Hal Roach or RKO comedy short for me. The story is strong, especially the beginning when they go to the car and he starts speeding. They recognize him as a doctor, but also think he might be a criminal. He certainly acts like a criminal, he is even willing to go as far as doing a life threatening operation just to get out of trouble!


Offline Umbrella Sam

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This seems more like a better representation of what the appeal to the Schilling-Lane team was than PARDON MY TERROR, which was basically just a Three Stooges short reworked at the last minute. I do think the beginning is a bit slow and lacking of any truly funny gags, but it really picks up its pace during the second half. Lane and Vernon Dent both have fun moments going crazy; I particularly like when Lane thinks Schilling is a large piece of meat and keeps asking the nurse what she wants him to do with it, mostly for Schilling’s response: “For goodness sake lady, tell him you want fish!” The chase is fun as well, especially when they keep crashing into the one guy in the hall. Yeah, we’ve seen that gag done to death both with the Stooges and other Columbia comedians, but this one has a nice, almost self-referential twist in which the officers get mad at the guy for always being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Top it off with an ending gag lifted from Harry Langdon’s I DON’T REMEMBER, and you get a delightfully fast-paced comedy...well, half of one. Again, I think the set up could have been a bit better; they do some verbal jokes, but none of them are particularly memorable. Still, for what it is, it does do its job by making me laugh, even if it took a while to do that.

7 out of 10
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