Classic Cinema: "All Over Town"

July 5, 5:29 PMClassic TV ExaminerDoug Krentzlin

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                     (Republic Pictures)

Despite their phenomenal popularity in Vaudeville and on Broadway, the comedy team of Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson never really achieved success in the film industry. The chief problem with Olsen and Johnson’s movie career was that their unique form of comedy did not translate well to the film medium, which is the most literal of the performing arts. Not only were Ole and Chic prevented from interacting with the audience (a major part of their shtick), but they had to carry actual stories complete with supporting characters and plot twists, a far cry from their free-wheeling, anything-for-a-laugh Vaudeville revues.

All Over Town (1937), the second of two low-budget movies they did for Republic Pictures, is the exception among their film work. It is by far Olsen and Johnson’s best movie ever and the only one that really captured their off-the-wall approach to humor. For once, Ole and Chic were allowed to take center stage from beginning to end, instead of being forced to the side by plot lines, production numbers or romantic interludes.

One reason All Over Town worked so well is that it was directed by James Horne who also made some of Laurel and Hardy’s funniest movies. And, for the first time, Ole and Chic were given top-drawer support by some of Hollywood’s best second bananas, including Franklin Pangborn, Stanley Fields, Lew Kelly, Fred Kelsey, and best of all, another Laurel and Hardy regular, James Finlayson.

All Over Town may have had a legitimate story (Ole and Chic try to solve a murder committed in the “haunted” Broadway theater where they’re staging their new show), but here it was just a framework to hang a series of self-contained comedy routines on. (At one point, Ole and Chic become convinced that their trained seal Sally is the culprit and, in the movie’s funniest – and most bizarre – sight gag, envision her going to the electric chair, film noir style.)

Despite the fact that All Over Town finally proved that Olsen and Johnson’s comedy could work in the film medium, it fared no better at the box office than their previous movies. But the next year, Ole and Chic had the most spectacular success of their career, the stage version of Hellzapoppin’, an insane anything-can-happen, plotless revue which went on to be the longest-running Broadway musical to date. (Hellzapoppin’ was filmed by Universal Pictures in 1941, but the less said about that movie the better.)