Topic: Fresh as a Freshman (1941) - The Glove Slingers

[Paul Pain]

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145786/

FRESH AS A FRESHMAN is another stumble in the Glove Slingers series.  The first reel has lots of laughs, but the second reel falls flat.  At the beginning, everyone gets a share of the laughs, and later it's just straight drama (poor drama at that) with Wally Vernon (the substitute for Shemp Howard in the Uncle Pat role) and Paul Hurst providing comic relief.

I must say that the fight scene bothers me terribly.  Terry is supposed to be a trained semi-professional fighter; he should be able to beat the s*** out of that guy in under 1 minute, if not under 30 seconds.

This one is another lame plot that moves too fast (literally weeks pass during the short) and is full of holes.  To get any enjoyment out of this requires shutting off your braining to the extent that it's just random comic routines appearing in random bursts over an 18 minute window.  There's little endearing about this one.

4/10

[HomokHarcos]

The Glove Slingers series is an odd one that it is more plot based than most of the other series at Columbia, which are more about gags. I definitely found this to be less entertaining than the other ones I've seen (both involved Shemp). The beginning reminded me of Harold Lloyd's Welcome Danger, from the picture being taken meeting the woman while she's working. There's also a pretty cringy racial joke that is as bad as the one in Buster Keaton's Seven Chances. I liked Wally Vernon here and thought he was clearly the highlight of the film.

[metaldams]

I think I can chalk it up to the fact The Glove Slingers series, with a few exceptions, just feels too…neurotypical for a guy like me.  Jocks and “casanovas” fighting over the pretty girl at college dances - bleh.  But that’s more a reflection on me than the series itself, I’m just not it’s audience, with the occasional trivia point of interest being the exception.

In this one, I do dig our patron saint, Al Thompson, getting his dose of slapstick.  Homok also hit the nail on the head.  The picture with the pretty girl, her being dressed up as a mechanic fixing her car and guy not realizing it’s her and guy being rude to her is straight out of Harold Lloyd’s WELCOME DANGER.  Clyde Bruckman and Felix Adler wrote that one too.  As far as I know, this one was not brought up in the lawsuit, but if it was, I wouldn’t be shocked.

Yeah, agreed, the racial gag is very cringe worthy.