WATCH THE BIRDIE

US, 1950, 71 minutes, Black and white.
Red Skelton, Arlene Dahl, Ann Miller, Leon Ames, Pamela Britton, Richard Rober.
Directed by Jack Donohue.

Watch the Birdie is one of many small-budget short running time comedies starring Red Skelton in the late 40s and the first half of the 1950s. Red Skelton was always popular, often appearing as a co-star in musicals with Esther Williams. Later he was to have a successful television career.

This film is a collection of sketches, a slight plot about corrupt builders and politics, and a romance? It has its tongue in cheek and is quite satirical at times.

Red Skelton has the opportunity to do his usual shtick. He plays the son of his father (played by Skelton himself – as was the character of his grandfather). They run a small business for photographers and are in difficulties. Through a series of accidents he encounters a rich businesswoman who is involved in a building project. She is played by Arlene Dahl at her most charming and attractive. With the opening of the site for the building project, there is amusing satire with Miss Lucky Vista, played by Ann Miller, pulling all the stops out for satire. Leon Ames, usually benign, is the villain.

There are various routines that Skelton excels the which may or may not appeal to a later audience. He tries to take photos of an admiral but finishes up photographing the concierge by mistake. He tries to film the launching of a ship and ends up in the water instead. There is also a scene where he goes to the doctor’s and is in a tight dressing room trying to undress for examination with a rather large man. There is also a chase, with Arlene Dahl and Red Skelton atop a huge two-storey vehicle. There are also some slapstick scenes at the opening of the site – with turkeys and Miss Lucky Vista in the midst, as well as a re-edited version of the film with the wrong voices and turkey gobbler sounds instead of the wife of the proprietor.

The film was directed by Jack Donohue, formerly a Ziegfeld dancer who began directing and directed Skelton in The Yellow Cab Man. He directed mainly for television though he directed Doris Day in Lucky Me and Frank Sinatra and Deborah Kerr in Marriage on the Rocks.

A film to look at in the contest of comedies of this period, MGM production, Red Skelton’s career.