Lazy Days

Lazy Days (1929)

BOMB (out of 4)

The gang is sitting around bored out of their minds until Joe sees that a baby contest is being held. The gang gather up their younger brothers and sisters and enter the contest. This third short from the gang is without a doubt the worst I've seen and I might even take it further by saying this is one of the worst films ever made. I didn't find the previous two shorts funny but this one here is just beyond bad in its attempt for humor. I should restate that because there's really no attempt at humor because it appears the screenwriters found torturing a baby to be funny. There's a sequence where Farina has to give his baby brother a bath and as soon as the baby is put into the tub he starts screaming and crying in terror. Do they cut the scene? No they make it worst by putting water on him and then dragging him around the rest of the film. Screaming and crying is the baby the entire time. Is the torturing of this kid funny in 1929 because it's happening to a black kid? I'm really not sure where to stand on the racial issues of this back in 1929 but the scene is incredibly ugly and brutal and to me ranks as one of the nastiest things I've seen in any movie. Even without this scene the movie wouldn't fair any better as the jokes are lame (Chubby as a baby) and the film drawn out.