The Paramount Comedy Shorts 1928-1942: Robert Benchley and the Knights of the Algonquin

The Paramount Comedy Shorts 1928-1942: Robert Benchley and the Knights of the Algonquin
A nifty piece of film history is revived in Robert Benchley and the Knights of the Algonquin, a collection of 14 short films (most of them around 10 minutes) featuring Benchley or his cronies from the famed intellectual circle of New York's Algonquin Hotel. This compilation has none of Benchley's shorts from the 1930s but uses mostly his work at Paramount in the early 1940s. The archival gems, however, are his first two efforts, The Treasurer's Report and The Sex Life of the Polyp, early Fox Movietone sound films from 1928. In each, Benchley is an earnest lecturer defeated by the complications of his subject and by the labyrinth of his own syntax. These droll lectures anticipate a modern style of comedy that relies not on jokes but on concept and character.

Nine Paramount shorts are included, the earliest being 1940's The Trouble with Husbands, with Benchley explaining, and acting out, the minor irritations of domestic life--which remain the subject through most of the shorts. The neurotic hyper-sensitivity of the stressed-out male is the subject of Nothing But Nerves, the ruination of a weekend with the boys becomes How to Take a Vacation, and the annoying habits of the American housewife are suggested in The Man's Angle. One of the most intriguing films is The Witness (1942), in which Benchley, exasperated by government hearings on loyalty and politics, imagines himself giving the congressional interlocutors a dressing-down. The humor here tends to be tame, although Benchley himself is an innately funny and abject presence.

Alexander Woollcott, one of Benchley's Algonquin buddies and fellow New Yorker writers, is the unlikely star of Mr. W's Little Game, a truly odd and funny piece from 1934. Woollcott is not a natural for the camera, but his chubby, owlish persona is amusing, and some of his erudite put-downs are choice. Two quietly comical films from 1929 feature Donald Ogden Stewart, a future Oscar-winning screenwriter, giving fractured lectures on traffic around Broadway and bird-watching. --Robert Horton
Customer Review: This DVD is better than the VHS version
I first reviewed this title when it was released on VHS, and wasn't totally impressed with the quality or selection of the shorts contained in it. I thought it would be good to have the DVD version though, despite my qualms. I was surprised to find that the DVD contains five additional Benchley Paramount shorts, giving us all nine of the shorts that Benchley made for Paramount from 1940 to 1942. In my previous review, I said that some of the titles were from reissue prints and so lacked the original titles. Kino seems to have found original prints with the original titles (with one exception), and has replaced them for the DVD. The print quality of the shorts is generally good, not perfect, but not terrible either. I own 16mm prints of many of the shorts, so for example, it was good to see a better print of KEEPING IN SHAPE than I already own. Recommended for those who would like to see all of his Paramount shorts.
Customer Review: The previous reviewer needs to have their eyes examined!!!
Okay, the picture quality may not be pristine, but considering the rarity of the prints, it is more than passable. The previous reviewer should have been around 60 years ago to bitch and complain enough to make the brain-dead exectutives at Paramount take better care of their film library. They didn't, and as a result, all we have of these classic Benchley efforts are second and third generation prints, of which the digital transfer emphasizes every little flaw. As for the shorts themselves, they may not be on par with the best of Benchley's efforts at MGM, but they are stil imaginative and enjoyable. Also enjoyable are the three shorts featuring Alexander Woollcott and Donald Ogden Stewart. All told, this is an excellent DVD package that improves upon its previous VHS incarnation. Now, if only MGM would get on the ball, and release a collection of their Benchley shorts, as opposed to releasing them piece-meal as extra features on other DVDs. Here's hoping.