Mooching Through Georgia (1939)

If I recall correctly, this was my definite favorite of the Columbia shorts the first time through.  Sly and funny, with gags that build wonderfully to a terrific climax.  It’s not perfect, but it’s probably as close to it as this era of Buster’s career gets (a few spoilers.)

The Civil War has just broken out, and Buster plays one of two brothers eager to join up.  Unfortunately for them, they live in Kentucky and the war is more confusing in the border states – they mistakenly wind up with opposing uniforms, and each one’s attempt to protect the other from their own army just puts them in the crosshairs of both.  The situation gets increasingly dicey as they try to figure out how to get on the same side.

A neat premise set up and executed really well.  Although it’s a classic comedy-of-errors scenario and thus gets more tangled the more the brothers try to get out of it, the basic nuts and bolts are pretty straightforward.  That, combined with a fairly contained set and and a narrow timeframe, keeps the story nice and tidy.  It gives the short room to play with recurring gags, like each man locking up his “prisoner” brother in turn but needing to borrow the key from the ostensible prisoner to do so.

To me, it’s a short that really feels like Buster, which always helps when you’re venturing outside his independent work.  There’s the patented Buster ingenuity, the klutziness-turned-heroics (he does a great stumbling-under-the-force-of-his-love routine early in the short, and while, later on, he’s not as impressively athletic as he is in his silent films, he still pulls out a few stops,) and a couple of horse gags that are just pure Buster – what was it about Buster and a good horse gag?

My favorite bit, though, is a hilarious piece of acting from Buster.  For reasons that I won’t spoil, it becomes necessary for him to fake his death (after a slightly delayed reaction,) and it’s straight out of the (over)dramatic silent actor playbook.  Just ludicrously funny.  By this time, I’m assuming that silent-movie acting had gotten a reputation for being silly and overdone, so there were probably a good number of films that made fun of the old style.  But Buster can make fun of it so well precisely because he can do it so authentically – he brings that old-school skill to the table, and he kills it!

Obviously, the Civil War backdrop brings The General to mind, but although I really enjoy the short, it goes without saying that it’s no General.  Don’t go in expecting a comic masterpiece, but as far as inconsequential bits of fun go, this one holds together quite handily.

Warnings

Slapstick violence and some gunplay.