Max Davidson is an unsung comedian of silent movies from Hal Roach Studios. Maybe the fact that he was obviously Jewish and therefore not very appealing to much of America at the time might have been the reason he wasn't very popular then and is pretty much forgotten now. Maybe some of his characterizations tended to be on the stereotypical side (though I'm not too familiar with that to know what stereotypes there were about Jews). Anyway, Don't Tell Everything has Mr. Davidson and his teenage son, Spec O'Donnell, attending a party where he meets a rich widow. Because Spec plays some pranks (such as using a rubber band to ruin James Finlayson's tricks), Max doesn't reveal his son to the widow. They get married ten days later and the son reveals in a note to his father that he's going to dress as a girl and become the maid in order to live with them. I'll just stop here to say there's plenty of funny set pieces like when Max gets his supposedly fixed car from a mechanic and finds out it's now falling apart, or his embracing his son while in ladies' underwear while his wife-unbeknownst to him-is watching, or an earlier scene when Max and the widow are sitting on the couch and the son-through the back window-touches his father's face and Max thinks it's the widow touching him so he touches her face and she doesn't like it! And, yes, Fin does his famous double takes that always make me laugh! So on that note, I highly recommended Don't Tell Everything.
2 Reviews
Don't Tell Everything is a funny Max Davidson short from Hal Roach
tavm30 July 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Oy vey! My son is a shikseh!
F Gwynplaine MacIntyre5 January 2003
Warning: Spoilers
I can usually laugh at drag humour, but the extended drag sequence in "Don't Tell Everything" makes me uneasy. Still, there are some good laughs in this Max Davidson comedy. Max plays a widowed tailor named Ginsberg, who has a son named Asher (played by the very ugly Spec O'Donnell). Asher is apparently a teenager, but he acts like he's about eight years old: he carries a toy catapult and keeps using it to annoy various adults ... including James Finlayson, who plays a lawyer named Goldblum! (Funny, he doesn't look Jewish.) Finlayson is wasted in the first half of the film, but he justifies his presence later.
Max meets the wealthy widow Finkelheimer. (As he shakes her hand, he feels the quality of her fur coat to gauge her wealth.) When Asher annoys her with his juvenile pranks, Mrs Finkelheimer asks Max 'Who is that brat?'. Max is already planning to marry the rich widow, so he denies all knowledge of Asher. Max and Mrs Finkelheimer get married with amazing rapidity, and Max moves into her house ... but Asher is left out in the cold, because Max dares not acknowledge that this 'brat' is his son.
Now comes the drag part that I disliked. Asher decides to dress up as a girl and get Max to hire him as the 'maid' so that he can live under the same roof as his father. We find out about his scheme before we actually see the results onscreen, via an insert shot of a handwritten note announcing Asher's intentions to become a girl. O'Donnell was a very unpleasant-looking young man, so I wasn't looking forward to seeing him in drag. But when he made his entrance as the 'maid', I was amazed. O'Donnell is actually believable as a girl ... a very UGLY girl, mind you, but he actually manages to look and move like a biological female. When he takes off his dress, he reveals that he's wearing a girl's undergarments, which suggests a deep commitment to his role. (Or maybe something else.) There are some continuity errors involving O'Donnell's stockings and his lipstick, which comes and goes during one scene. Late in the film, we find out that Asher keeps his catapult tucked into his girly undergarments ... which raises some questions about what he's planning to do.
The part that distresses me occurs when the 'maid' reveals his true identity, and Max eagerly embraces his son ... who is still dressed in a wig and girls' underwear. There's something very distasteful about a man embracing a teenage boy who's dressed as a girl (and only in undergarments, yet), and matters are not improved by the fact that the man and boy are meant to be father and son. I stopped laughing at this point.
There's a funny gag a bit later when O'Donnell runs out into the street, still wearing a blonde wig and girls' undergarments but no dress. When a policeman accosts him, O'Donnell explains (in a title card) that it's O.K. because he's not really a girl: he's a boy! Then he walks away, mincing like a girl. This grotesque scene is actually quite funny because O'Donnell well and truly does look like a (very ugly) girl, not a boy in girls' clothes. The scene is made even funnier by the fact that it was obviously filmed on a real Los Angeles street (not a backlot set), and all the baffled bystanders are (apparently) genuine pedestrians who weren't aware of the joke ... not extras playing a scene.
I stopped laughing in the next scene. After O'Donnell ends up in some paint, he goes to Mrs Finkelheimer's house, strips out of his girl-clothes and decides to take a bath ... still wearing his girl's wig. Loving father Max scrubs his naked teenage son. This is meant to set up a gag in which Mrs Finkelheimer glimpses Max scrubbing the naked 'maid', but I found it too tasteless to be funny. Why is a man bathing his naked teenage son (who is old enough to bath himself), and why is the son still wearing a girl's wig in the bathtub? This sequence implies that Asher actually wants to be a girl (instead of adopting female disguise only as an expedient), and it also implies that Max prefers his son as a girl. I couldn't laugh at this scene.
James Finlayson was famous for his 'double-take and fadeaway', to which playwright Alan Ayckbourn paid tribute in 'Comic Potential'. Late in this film, "Fin" does one of his funniest double-takes ever, but it relies on a mechanical gag. While Finlayson stares at Max bathing the naked maid, the bowler on Finlayson's head starts to wibble-wobble all by itself. This is funny, but we know there's a physical gimmick involved. "Fin" didn't need that sort of help.
SPOILER COMING. The first half of this film has a funny routine involving Max and a garage mechanic ... which seems to be irrelevant to the rest of the film, but it all comes together for the final gag. I'll rate 'Don't Tell Everything' 6 out of 10. It's funny, but it's not one of Max Davidson's best. Unless you want to see a teenage boy walking down the street disguised as a half-naked teenage girl, in which case this is definitely the movie to watch.
Max meets the wealthy widow Finkelheimer. (As he shakes her hand, he feels the quality of her fur coat to gauge her wealth.) When Asher annoys her with his juvenile pranks, Mrs Finkelheimer asks Max 'Who is that brat?'. Max is already planning to marry the rich widow, so he denies all knowledge of Asher. Max and Mrs Finkelheimer get married with amazing rapidity, and Max moves into her house ... but Asher is left out in the cold, because Max dares not acknowledge that this 'brat' is his son.
Now comes the drag part that I disliked. Asher decides to dress up as a girl and get Max to hire him as the 'maid' so that he can live under the same roof as his father. We find out about his scheme before we actually see the results onscreen, via an insert shot of a handwritten note announcing Asher's intentions to become a girl. O'Donnell was a very unpleasant-looking young man, so I wasn't looking forward to seeing him in drag. But when he made his entrance as the 'maid', I was amazed. O'Donnell is actually believable as a girl ... a very UGLY girl, mind you, but he actually manages to look and move like a biological female. When he takes off his dress, he reveals that he's wearing a girl's undergarments, which suggests a deep commitment to his role. (Or maybe something else.) There are some continuity errors involving O'Donnell's stockings and his lipstick, which comes and goes during one scene. Late in the film, we find out that Asher keeps his catapult tucked into his girly undergarments ... which raises some questions about what he's planning to do.
The part that distresses me occurs when the 'maid' reveals his true identity, and Max eagerly embraces his son ... who is still dressed in a wig and girls' underwear. There's something very distasteful about a man embracing a teenage boy who's dressed as a girl (and only in undergarments, yet), and matters are not improved by the fact that the man and boy are meant to be father and son. I stopped laughing at this point.
There's a funny gag a bit later when O'Donnell runs out into the street, still wearing a blonde wig and girls' undergarments but no dress. When a policeman accosts him, O'Donnell explains (in a title card) that it's O.K. because he's not really a girl: he's a boy! Then he walks away, mincing like a girl. This grotesque scene is actually quite funny because O'Donnell well and truly does look like a (very ugly) girl, not a boy in girls' clothes. The scene is made even funnier by the fact that it was obviously filmed on a real Los Angeles street (not a backlot set), and all the baffled bystanders are (apparently) genuine pedestrians who weren't aware of the joke ... not extras playing a scene.
I stopped laughing in the next scene. After O'Donnell ends up in some paint, he goes to Mrs Finkelheimer's house, strips out of his girl-clothes and decides to take a bath ... still wearing his girl's wig. Loving father Max scrubs his naked teenage son. This is meant to set up a gag in which Mrs Finkelheimer glimpses Max scrubbing the naked 'maid', but I found it too tasteless to be funny. Why is a man bathing his naked teenage son (who is old enough to bath himself), and why is the son still wearing a girl's wig in the bathtub? This sequence implies that Asher actually wants to be a girl (instead of adopting female disguise only as an expedient), and it also implies that Max prefers his son as a girl. I couldn't laugh at this scene.
James Finlayson was famous for his 'double-take and fadeaway', to which playwright Alan Ayckbourn paid tribute in 'Comic Potential'. Late in this film, "Fin" does one of his funniest double-takes ever, but it relies on a mechanical gag. While Finlayson stares at Max bathing the naked maid, the bowler on Finlayson's head starts to wibble-wobble all by itself. This is funny, but we know there's a physical gimmick involved. "Fin" didn't need that sort of help.
SPOILER COMING. The first half of this film has a funny routine involving Max and a garage mechanic ... which seems to be irrelevant to the rest of the film, but it all comes together for the final gag. I'll rate 'Don't Tell Everything' 6 out of 10. It's funny, but it's not one of Max Davidson's best. Unless you want to see a teenage boy walking down the street disguised as a half-naked teenage girl, in which case this is definitely the movie to watch.
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