Topic: His Baiting Beauty (1950) - Harry von Zell

[Paul Pain]

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0172555/

Emil Sitka's "diary entry" for this short is really more of an overview of the short, Harry von Zell's career, and the long-lasting friendship Emil and Harry had until Harry's death.  See it here: http://www.emilsitka.com/hisbaitingbeauty1950.html

HIS BAITING BEAUTY is billed as a Harry von Zell short with 6 co-stars, and this short is interesting in that, except for one bellhop whose face is never seen (is that Johnny Kascier though?), they are the only characters seen in the entire short.  The IMDB reviews came from people whom I think didn't watch the short or something as they are so far off the mark in some spots.

The cast is all great here, but with a twist.  Harry is his usual self, and Christine McIntyre is his beautiful trophy wife.  Minerva Urecal is great as the battle axe mother-in-law to Harry, and Dick Wessel is Christine's brother, who works as strongman who pulls heavy objects with his teeth.  Jean Willes plays a crazy fan who falls in love with Harry without knowing he's married.  And Emil Sitka.  My goodness is Emil funny here as the wolfish, wise-cracking, and firm, but still goofy and eccentric, boss to Harry.  I don't know if a short has the star on-screen for less-time in this one or BILLIE GETS HER MAN, but one of those must be the Columbia Shorts record for "least-featured star."

Emil Sitka appeared in all 8 Harry von Zell shorts, which resulted in a lifelong friendship between the two.  The friendship shows really strongly in this short as they make smart cracks at each other and maintain themselves in the first half of the short, which sees them interacting at the office and at the hotel.  Harry is clearly, however, a thorn in his boss's side in this one.  Emil does it all here: he gets his desk pad ruined when Harry slaps him on the back, plays a wolf, insults Harry, and even goes into violent rage at the end.  All of these are done with Emil's custom relish and passion.

The rest of the cast is all great, but in particular Minerva Urecal deserves praise.  She is perfectly crabby and abusive, delivering all the slaps in this short (all delivered to Dick Wessel).  She is a battle-axe from top to bottom, and her domineering personality dominates the atmosphere.  She truly deserved that "kiss" Harry gave her before he left the apartment.

Jean Willes and Christine McIntyre are good at what their roles respectively require.  Jean is both a dish and a fabulous actress, and both are put to great use here.  She even does a nice job of freaking out when she realizes that (1) she hasn't been eating dinner with Harry and (2) that Harry's married.  Christine is more in support to the rest, but she always delivers.

This short moves at a nice pace, and it is indeed one of those domestic situations that could be explained away in 3 minutes.  The plot is quite nicely put together, though, to make it reasonably stretch out to a full-length short.  Even if the plot is tired, this short is worth watching for the performances delivered from the cast, who truly lift this one up to a higher level.

8/10

[metaldams]

A really good short and I pretty much agree one of the ones where the “star” is least featured in a Columbia short.  Hal Roach used to create “All Star” comedies where a bunch of Roach regulars did their magic as an ensemble piece without a particular actor standing out.  That very much is what HIS BAITING BEAUTY plays like.  Harry Von Zell may be billed as the star, but he’s one of the many enjoyable ensemble pieces in reality.

Think of a Columbia who’s who in ideal roles for the early fifties and you get most, if not all of the people you’d expect.  Christine McIntyre as the jilted wife, Jean Willes as the other woman, Dick Wessel as the brute brother in law out for revenge and the versatile Emil Sitka playing the woman chaser who excels in great physical comedy.  Add Minerva Urecal as the mother in law along with Von Zell and you have a script that was tailor made for the actors involved.  Not always the case with Columbia as there seem to be several occasions where non Stooge comedians are shoehorned into scripts that are better for The Stooges.

Von Zell himself is a likable screen presence but better severed as a supporting type guy, which is exactly what he was working with Burns and Allen a few years later.  As for HIS BAITING BEAUTY, a lot of fun for any seasoned Shemp era Stooge fans - the regulars all shine.

[Umbrella Sam]

Well, between the excellent MEET MR. MISCHIEF and the awful ROLLING DOWN TO RENO, HIS BAITING BEAUTY sort of falls down the middle...although it’s definitely more towards the MEET MR. MISCHIEF side than the ROLLING DOWN TO RENO one.

It’s another “mistaken situation” domestic comedy. The setup does allow for some great moments from Dick Wessel as the threatening, but still silly brother-in-law. Emil is much better here than in ROLLING DOWN TO RENO; once again, he’s the one that takes most of the beatings, and does it with the great comedic timing that only Emil could pull off. The downside is that things just get so unfocused; Harry himself really doesn’t do a whole lot in the middle of the short and when it returns to him, it just feels kind of odd. What’s even odder is that he goes to see the woman he was trying to avoid to get her to explain the situation. Why does he think this will work? If anything, it makes him look more guilty when the brother-in-law catches him. The setup itself is rather slow too; it feels like they have to dedicate a lot of time to introducing these characters to get things moving. They have to spend time establishing that Harry and the mother-in-law don’t like each other; they have to spend time establishing that Dick Wessel is the brother-in-law and doesn’t know Harry. Yeah, the payoff is good with these two characters, but couldn’t they have just mentioned this in passing when they got there? It feels like it takes forever to get to the actual comedy. In the end, this one is kind of all over the place, but, hey, it does get some laughs out of me, definitely more than ROLLING DOWN TO RENO.

[HomokHarcos]

Metaldams pointed it out earlier, but Columbia produced a lot of marriage mix-up comedies that The Three Stooges were mostly safe from. These are fun when you spread out the viewings, so I will judge them that way. I said it before, but Harry is great when he's doing wisecracks. He acts like a jerk, but is actually pretty funny. Umbrella Sam is right though, what was the point of going to meet the woman that sent him the fan mail? It seems like he could have easily just explained to his wife that it was an admirer, instead he goes to meets up with her face-to-face.