I was recently lamenting the lack of quality comedy team duos in the present day, it used to be such a common thing, but as far as I'm concerned, the last great comedy team to work in the movies was Cheech & Chong, followed by Penn & Teller. In the old days, they used guys who either had radio shows like Amos & Andy, or it was just an extension of an already existing vaudeville, or Broadway act, like tonight's stars, those not so common household names in this day and age, but they should be, Ole Olsen & Chic Johnson!!
No, Olsen & Johnson have not exactly withstood the test of time popularity like Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, or Martin & Lewis, but boy, did they make a couple of movies that should be in the Comedy Hall of Fame of all time, like tonight's especial feature brought to you courtesy of Professor Grewbeard & Huckleberry Margaritas,
"Ghost Catchers"!!!
Martha Driscoll as Susanna Marshall and her sister have been brought out from Georgia by their Dad to perform in New York, and they are staying in a mansion that is believed to be haunted!
The family is awakened on their first night by loud noises and a mysterious message by what seems to be a ghost!!
Susanna gets so scared by all the commotion that she books it out of the house, and heads on over to the neighbors to ask for help and consolation, and after being nicely greeted initially, the next thing she knows is, she's gagged and bound, and sitting in an electric chair!
The following year Martha O'Driscoll would play Miliza Morelle in the classic House of Dracula. After having a run of 39 films in 10 years, Martha decided to get married and breed thoroughbred horses!
"Three cheers for the customer, the customer is always right!"
Susanna Marshall had no idea that the next door neighbor was actually Olsen and Johnson's club. Even in real life Ole and Chic were known for their wild Hellzapoppin' act! By the way, "Hellzapoppin'" is also the name of another one of their freakin' amazing movies we will be discussin' in the future!
Sight gags, sound gags, explosions, midgets, phony guns and knives, Olsen & Johnson were irrepressible and unstoppable! They were both former musicians, Olsen played the violin and Johnson was a ragtime pianist, so their act and their films were both insanely funny and full of music!
Morton Downey was one of the featured musicians in this film, doing an excellent job of playing himself!
So after that wild beginning, Susanna is joined by her father, Walter Catlett as Colonel Breckinridge Marshall, and her sister, Gloria Jean as Melinda Marshall, in an effort to root out the ghost! Goria started her career at 13 in "The Under-Pup," and Walter was usually typecast as a Colonel or a Mayor!
The Marshalls elicit the help of Olsen & Johnson and a bunch of jitterbuggin' teenagers to help them find, and get rid of the ghost!
Somewhere in the midst of all this krazy ghost chasin' jitterbuggin' is 19 year old ultimate Dungeon Hero, Jerry Warren, dancin' his ass off, in his first film ever! Yes, THAT Jerry Warren!
More arcane and cryptic messages!
A good part of the reason that the work of Olsen & Johnson is different than the aforementioned duos is they didn't have a straight man, they were both insane, so a lot of time the humor is just zany non-stop madness.
The quality of the talent associated with "Ghost Catchers" is evidenced by the presence of heavies like Andy Devine as "Horsehead" and Lon Chaney Jr, as "Bear!"
There is just no way to go wrong with a good water gag!
In most of the 'Haunted House/Ghost' comedy flicks of the 40's, there weren't really any ghosts, but usually hoodlums or nazi spies, making the place seem like it was haunted to keep people away, and this one does have the underlying crime tale, but there also is a real ghost too!!
Ole Olsen's Son-in-law was William Lear, who invented the Lear Jet, but more importantly, he also invented the 8-track player, so they we could all rock out in our cars in the 1960's and 70's!
Director Edward F. Cline made scores of slapstick comedies from 1916 to 1951 featuring some of the best comics of all time, including names like Slim Summerville, Ben Turpin, Buster Keaton, W.C. Fields, Wheeler & Woolsey, and The Ritz Brothers, and a lot of them are Shorts, so you'd be wise to try and see all 171 of them if you can!!
Hellzapoppin' was an uncanny New York stage show brought to the big screen, and the enthusiastically wild music was composed by a couple of cool dudes, lyricist Don(Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy) Raye and compser Gene(Cow Cow Boogie) de Paul! The basic soundtrack is attributed to Mr. Frank (Abbott and Costello) Skinner!
Maybe I've said this before about some other movie, but "HELLZAPOPPIN'" just might be THE best movie ever made, period, paragraph, end of story, would the prosecution like to rest their case? Real quick, just let me say that tonight's special feature is brought to you courtesy of the honourable Professor Grewbeard! Can we have a hardy clap for the Prof? One, two, three.....!
Just to get it started, a Pre-Stooges SHEMP HOWARD IS WORKIN' THE PROJECTOR!! Give me a break!!
Excuse my French, but just what in the name of Hades is goin' on here??
The action is HOT and Heavy!! No CGI, just a whole lot of Devil-Freaks moving around together in synch, like some kind of insane comedic tornado from where else, that's right, HELL!!
You've got your "Satanic Choir!"
You've got your Bar-B-Qued Teriyarki "Chix-On-A-Stick!"
The ever so popular, "Canned Guy" assembly line!
And last but not least, you've got Chic Johnson and Ole Olsen!!
And what are Olsen and Johnson staring at, still more freakin' devils!!!!
I like how Ole and Chic have their hats cocked the opposite direction of each other!
Shemp's character Cousin Louie, only got the job as projectionist because he was related to Chic and Ole, but he is totally distacted by his main squeeze, Jodi Gilbert, who had a big career in TV and movies. She would be Mrs. Putney in 2 TV episodes of "Batman," a fat lady in a "Night Gallery" episode, and she was Mrs. Martha Barton in the 1948 feature, "Bungalow 13," just to mention a couple!
It's 1941 and they came up with the concept of talking from the screen to the projection booth! These people were thinking overtime because..........
........It's.... H E L L Z A P O P P I N'!!!
And all that non-stop music and mayhem happened in about the first 7 or 8 minutes of Hellzapoppin', before they clue the audience into the fact that they are just on the set of a movie!
Time to take a breather, I'm out of breath after that whole sequence!!
There's a sub-plot about the making of the movie, but essentially, Hellzapoppin' is a jive jumpin' musical comedy that is literally beyond description, unless you want me to write a book!
Then the amazing musicians Slim (Flat Foot Floogie) Gaillard and Slam Stewart along with the "Six Hits" display their awesome talents as Slim and Slam, when all the service employees take a break to fire up the boogie!!
At this point Hellzapoppin' is totally out of control again with the wildest bop party you've ever seen going on, as the dance crew known as the Harlem Congeroos tear up the joint!!!
The neverending and crazed jitterbug frenzy, never stops for even a second!!
The amazing Martha Raye has a good part as nutjob songstress Betty Johnson, and performs "Watch The Birdie" and "Waiting For The Robert E. Lee." Martha had her own TV show back in the 50's and was also a regular on The Steve Allen Show, and was always hilarious! Lastly, for you younger readers, Martha Raye was also Benita Bizarre in 17 episodes of "The Bugaloos!" Martha Raye's awesome career ended in 1994, but what a trail she left!
What a production!!
Elisha Cook Jr had the part of Harry Selby, the writer of the script for the movie within a movie! Elisha ended up working on over 200 movies during his career, including titles near and dear to us all like, "Voodoo Island," "Panic," "House On Haunted Hill," "Black Zoo," "The Haunted Palace," and "Dead People!"
