This is
kind of a weird one. While it has its
good comedic moments, it doesn’t have much in the way standout comic
sequences. What’s more, though, some of
the plot is just uncomfortable. Not
really sure how this short was dreamed up, but it’s no favorite of mine.
Fleeing
from a wedding that he evidently agreed to while drunk, Buster heads for the
hills. On the way, he picks up a
hitchhiker/runaway bride. Both have
sworn off romantic entanglements and cheerfully declare themselves a “woman-hater”
and “man-hater” respectively (note: this
just seems to be their way of saying they’re done with women/men. There’s nothing to indicate that either
actually hates members of the opposite gender in any malicious way; just
unfortunate phrasing.) They plan to camp
in the mountains together but are soon set upon by an unpleasant boor of a
fellow traveler who pushes Buster around and acts like the girl is his
property. Buster and the girl need to do
some quick thinking to get away from him.
It’s
this guy, the interloper, that really brings the short down for me. I get that understanding of harassment has
grown hugely since 1935, and a domineering guy who “won’t take no for an
answer” constitutes the main external conflict in plenty of old comedies (a
fair number of Buster’s silent stuff features the bad guy pulling the girl into
his arms and laughing as she tries to get away.) This plot really doesn’t sit right with me,
though. Maybe it’s by virtue of the fact
that it is a talkie and doesn’t tell
its story through oversized gestures, a practice which can distance you a
little from what’s happening onscreen.
But for
whatever reason, this guy skeeves me out way more than a lot of these types of
plots do. He repeatedly calls the girl
“baby,” wants her at his beck and call, and is a generally lascivious creep. He’s also taken
Buster’s car keys, stranding them with him, and insists that, when they do
part ways, the girl is going with him, not Buster. It just makes me really uncomfortable, and it’s
compounded by the fact that Buster’s character is a little more easily cowed
here. It’s not quite the “chump dynamic”
from the MGM years, but he doesn’t push back nearly as much as I like to see
with Buster.
All
that understandably puts a damper on the humor, and unfortunately, there isn’t
a lot start with. Most of what we do get
is contained to small moments, bits of incidental comedy from Buster. There’s a good gag of him leaning on a
folding chair (you can imagine how well that turns out) and a funny shot of him
attacking a watermelon. There’s only one
good comic sequence, involving a fishing hole, a small dog, and some Mexican
jumping beans; creative and cute. Fishing isn’t quite as reliable as baseball,
cars, and trains, but it’s still one of those topics that pretty much always
lends itself to good Buster comedy.
Warnings
Slapstick
violence and some unpleasant harassment.
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