Oh, curses those dreadful annoyances that prevent us from getting a good night's sleep. Whether they be noisy alley cats, neighbors, crickets, or even clocks. Yeah, in tonight's story, Edgar Kennedy has to contend with a very noisy clock. It was built by his father in-law, who even installed an amplifier for good measure. Every hour on the hour, two little drummers pop out of the grandfather clock and pound away. Oh, Pop and Vivian don't mind all that racket, but it's sure grating Edgar's last nerve. After taking one rat-a-tat-tat, boom-boom-boom too many, he decrees that he'll destroy it. Pop tries to stop him with an old bayonet rifle, which Edgar simply twists around his neck. Their fight over the clock awakens the rest of the floor and the landlord is none too sympathetic to Edgar's insomniac plight. As you may have noticed, Edgar's always crossing swords with either policemen or landlords. I think both associations just hate him for no reason. In response, the landlord tells Edgar to go back to sleep or he'll go to jail, AND he has to move out tomorrow. Chiding Edgar for once again losing his temper, Vivian goes back to bed, and Pop takes the clock in his room. Unfortunately, Eddie simply can't let this go, so he decides to sneak into Pop's room. Since he's about as subtle as an atomic bomb, the old man fears a prowler and locks the door, now trapping Edgar inside. He's even got the key hanging around his neck. So, determined to free himself, Edgar tries to cut the string holding the key, only for Pop to wake up and see a man trying to kill him. Fortunately, it was dark and he couldn't make out his face, giving Edgar time to climb out the window and get back to his own room before anybody noticed he was gone. Pop goes for the police, while Vivian goes to get the landlord, despite Edgar's feeble attempts to stop them. However, this does give him ample opportunity to get rid of the clock once and for all. He carries it downstairs to the basement and asks Joe the Janitor to get rid of it. They do so by loading it into the furnace. So long, Little Clockwork Drummer Boys. When Eddie returns to the apartment, the police inform him that they got the intruder's prints and will have no trouble catching him.
Now, during the first half of this short, we encountered two dilemmas: Edgar and his family being evicted, and Edgar being sought by the cops for the attempted murder of his father in-law, yet none of these are ever resolved. We know Edgar would've never tried to kill his father in-law, even though no jury in the world would convict him, and they have his fingerprints, yet we never see them again. The Kennedys also seem to be in no hurry to get moved out, so did the writer forget about these loose ends? Anyway, Edgar asks Vivian about the $200 he asked her to save, and she informs him that she put it in the clock. That's right, in the clock. The one Edgar summarily dispatched into oblivion the following night. I'm sure it is, what other clock could she possibly mean? Edgar rushes to the basement via the garbage chute and hoses down the furnace to try and retrieve that retched clock. When he can't see it, he climbs right in. Now, even though the fire is out, he would still burn alive in there. Dejected, Edgar goes back upstairs, and that's when he heard it: the familiar rat-a-tat-tat boom-boom-boom. Oh no, it's come back from the fires of Hell! Actually, it never went, as for some reason, Joe decided to sell it to one of Edgar's neighbors. After all, all he said was "get rid of it." The neighbor is willing to sell it back to Edgar for $200, because he hates his guts. Hurriedly, Edgar tries to shake down Pop for $200, but he wants $50 interest. When Eddie agrees, the old man goes to ask Vivian for the money, and she gets it out of the... kitchen clock. Ha ha ha ha, oh no. So after inadvertently buying back the clock he hated so much, Edgar tries to chase Pop around the house with it and even out the door, except it won't fit. The obnoxious drummers play us out as Edgar does a slow burn.
When Pop installed an amplifier, why didn't he also include a mute button? Just mute the stupid thing at night, that way everybody would be happy. As far as the story and characters go, it's a pretty good one, and the payoff of Edgar buying back the clock with his own money was really good. Vivian and Pop were their usual selfish selves, not caring that the noisy clock was keeping Edgar up at night. Pretty much every other character in this short was a jerk, just people who exist purely to hate Edgar and make his life miserable. Not much else I can say about this one, other than it's a pretty good film, and that clock is actually very creative, if only it came with a sleep mode.
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