Goofy Movies Number Seven

As usual with the ten shorts in the GOOFY MOVIES series from MGM, most of the screen time is occupied with a nonsensical movie made up of oddball clips from silent movies, narrated by Pete Smith. Smith had spent most of his career up to then as a publicity man, and had acquired -- or brought with him -- a manner of telling loopy, corny jokes that he carried through almost all his narrations through the end of the Pete Smith specials more than twenty years later.

Like others of the commenters, I am often offended by the movies made in the 1930s and 1940s, in which silent movies were chopped up and ridiculed as antiques. It's a common enough attitude, to ridicule those that came before, to claim that the current moment is so much better than anything in the past, and weren't they ridiculous? Their time will come, as ours will too, and those who go after us will ridicule all of us, and find something of value in the things we discarded in our haste to proclaim our modernity. That's simply the way people are.

Yet every age has its excesses -- ours included -- and Smith's compilation of clips catalogues those excesses, and does so in an amusing fashion. Not all the jokes work, and not all of them worked in 1934. What's your average when you tell a joke?

The later Pete Smith specialties were much better than this short from 1934 which can best be described as "painfully unfunny."

Smith does the narration for a bunch of clips that make most mortals look beyond silly. And most of the clips get their laughs from silent film acting with overdone expressions of despair or grief, given another meaning by Smith's narration. This double-layered effect is supposed to provide us with dozens of laughs (or at least chuckles).

An Indian supposedly reacting to a dose of poison is shown taking his time to make the most of his extended death scene before he finally succumbs.

Forget about it. Let's just hope others in the series are wittier than this one or are less obvious when straining for a laugh.

Goofy Movies Number Seven (1934)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The seventh of ten films in this MGM series that has Pete Smith adding narration to silent film clips. Sometimes the films work and others times we're left with some dreadful but thankfully this one here manages to get a few laughs. During the "Wotaphony" newsreel we see clips from several movies including one where a butler delivers bad news to his owner and another scene where an Indian drinks from a poisoned well. I thought this first sequence was very funny as Smith's narration added to a couple well-written jokes. The stuff with the poisoned well was very funny. The second portion of the film deals with the "feature" as we see why a bum ended up the way he did. This includes growing up with artist parents as well as having his dad drink all his milk. This second portion isn't quite as funny but Smith does get across a few nice jokes. I know a lot of silent film buffs hate this series and others that bothered to laugh at silent movies. I love silent movies but every once in a while they're certainly opened to a few jokes and this one here manages to get a couple nice laughs.

The Wotaphony newsreel shows the brilliance of Hollywood acting. It's not funny and there is nothing exciting like cool stunt footage. The joke is too flat and broad and bad. Then it's the short silent film "The Downfall of Thaddeus G. Blotto, Esq." The narration isn't that funny and it's a little bit awkward. It's about a little baby running away from home. I'm willing to go with the stupidity of that premise if only the baby stayed a baby. That has some comedic possibilities. All in all, this is mostly poor writing.

This is yet another annoying film narrated by Pete Smith. Now I have always been surprised by the Pete Smith films, as MGM was a great studio but these shorts were god-awful. The bottom line is that they just aren't funny. And, the "Pete Smith" specialties are a product of the 1930s, 40s and 50s that I just don't understand--especially since they won two Oscars and Laurel & Hardy won only one! What gives?! This particular one, "Goofy Movies Number Seven" consists of Smith's usual unfunny narration set to various unrelated clips from silent films. In many ways, it seems like he was trying to do an early version of "Mystery Science Theater"--but totally unscripted and unfunny throughout. It's sad, but I would have MUCH rather seen the original films that are mocked in this short than listen to a single word from Smith.

This makes you wonder if Smith was blackmailing Louis B. Meyer (the studio head)--what other explanation would there be for such films?! Cancer is funnier than these films.