Paul McCullough Movies
The partner of Bobby Clark, Paul McCullough became a star in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in short films as one half of "Clark & McCullough." They started out as co-equal partners in comedy, but by the time they worked on their best short films at RKO in the '30s, McCullough was far less creatively engaged than Clark (who worked out most of the routines ahead of time) and had receded to being the raccoon-coated straight man to the more live-wire Clark. He later collapsed from exhaustion following a successful Broadway run in early 1936. McCullough committed suicide by slashing his own throat while being driven home from the sanitarium by Clark who went on to 22 years of success on the Broadway stage. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi- 1933
Broadway comedians Bobby Clark and Paul McCullough were as popular as the Marx Brothers during the 1920s and 1930s. While mustachioed straight man McCullough was essentially a fur-coated nonentity, Clark was hailed as a comic genius, a master of the instant adlib and zany nonsequitur. Certainly no one looked more like a comedian than Clark, who sported a pair of painted-on hornrimmed glasses and wore an impossibly wide-brimmed hat. From 1930 to 1936 (the year of McCullough's death), Clark and McCullough turned out an average of six 2-reel comedies per year for RKO Radio Pictures. While many were mediocre, a handful are as amusing today as they were six decades ago. Clark and McCullough: Inspired Madness contains three of their best short subjects: The Druggist's Dilemma (1933), Fits in a Fiddle (1933) and Alibi Bye-Bye (1935). The last-named film, wherein the pair portray "alibi photographers" in Atlantic City, is perhaps the funniest of the batch. One quibble: why not include the team's all-time best effort, 1934's Odor in the Court? ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1927
Although the silent W.C. Fields vehicle Two Flaming Youths no longer exists, a surviving script (titled Side Show) offers a tantalizing peek at this long-lost effort. Fields is cast as Gabby Gilfoil, owner of "Gilfoil's Nonpareil Circus," a dog-and-pony operation that must forever stay one step ahead of sheriffs and creditors. Fleeing across the border to Arkosa county, Gabby and his entourage stop over at the Mansion House, a near-bankrupt hotel run by Madge Marlarkey (Cissie Fitzgerald). To avoid paying his bill, Gabby pays court to Madge, only to find a formidable rival in Sheriff Ben Holden (Chester Conklin). Meanwhile, Gabby's daughter Mary (Mary Brian) is romanced by Holden's young cousin Tony (Jack Luden). Mary decides to settle down in Arkosa with Tony, prompting Gabby to pop the question to Madge -- but she has announced that she will marry the man who is able to pay her mortgage. Gabby and Holden spend the rest of the picture trying to raise the necessary funds to wed Madge, an effort complicated when Gabby is mistaken for a desperate criminal. A collection of themes and comic notions that would later be refined in such Fields talkies as The Old Fashioned Way and You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, Two Flaming Youths would be worth seeing again if only to watch the glittering parade of "guest stars," all of them vaudeville, Broadway and Hollywood headliners: Clark and McCullough, Moran and Mack, Kolb and Dill, Savoy and Brennan, Benny and McNulty, Phil Baker and Sid Silvers, Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton, Jack Pearl and Ben Bard, and The Duncan Sisters. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- W.C. Fields, Chester Conklin, (more)
