The Big Parade of Comedy (1964)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Robert Youngson

Writer:

Robert Youngson (written by)

Release Date:

16 December 1966 (Finland)

Genre:

Comedy | Documentary

Plot:

A compilation of scenes from classic MGM comedies from the silent era up to 1948's "A Southern Yankee."...

Plot Keywords:

Compilation | Studio Compilation | Part Animated

Cast

Clark Gable	...	Actor in 'Hold Your Man' (archive footage)
Greta Garbo	...	Actress in 'Ninotchka' (archive footage)
The Marx Brothers	...	Actors in 'Go West' (archive footage)
Jean Harlow	...	Actress in 'Hold Your Man' (archive footage)
Cary Grant	...	Actor in 'Suzy' (archive footage)
Spencer Tracy	...	Actor in 'Libeled Lady' (archive footage)
Katharine Hepburn	...	Actress in 'The Philadelphia Story' (archive footage)
W.C. Fields	...	Actor in 'David Copperfield' (archive footage)
Stan Laurel	...	Actor in 'Hollywood Story' (archive footage)
Oliver Hardy	...	Actor in 'Hollywood Story' (archive footage)
William Powell	...	Actor in 'The Thin Man' (archive footage)
Myrna Loy	...	Actress in 'The Thin Man' (archive footage)
Lucille Ball	...	Actress in 'Meet the People' (archive footage)
Red Skelton	...	Actor in 'A Southern Yankee' (archive footage)
Robert Taylor	...	Actor in 'Personal Property' (archive footage)

Also Known As:

MGM's Big Parade of Comedy (USA) (complete title)

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Approved | Finland:S

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Movie Connections:

Features The Girl from Missouri (1934)

Soundtrack:

Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush

From the bad old days.

Youngson must have been the last real movie ghoul, making a living by cutting up old films into virtual guitar picks. Good bad or indifferent, the only reason for inclusion in this compilation seems to be he could get his hands on a print and then chop chop chop, funny or not. It reminds me of Glenn L. Martin delivering a plane to the Army in WW2 (the B-26 aka The Widowmaker) which kept killing its crews. Martin explained that it met the contractual specifications. This film meets somebody's contractual specifications and made what's called a 'nice show business dollar', but it is a pile of junk whose stink is even more loathsome considering the talent which gets ripped off.

Normally I would just leave this alone except for the fact that this film contains the most perfunctory and execrable film lyric of all time. In the song, which is introducing a segment on Robert Benchely, the lyric goes- "Robert Benchley was a funny man/ A funny man was he". Certainly a new low in the lack of imagination department. Robert Youngson was a cheap-son-of-a-bitch/ a cheap-son-of-a-bitch was he. Of course Youngson didn't hire a lyricist but wrote the 'lyrics' himself, just like he wrote (oh, that narration would be rejected by Hallmark as soporific drivel, and it just goes on and inanely on), produced., directed, did the visual effects and titles, himself. His wife did the research. This was just one in a series of compilation films he did coming from the short film assembly lines which died in the early 50s. Insteed of going in to TV he did this.

Now, I believe Youngson has been completely superseded by the age of film preservation and the like of Turner Classics and various DVD distributors though I guess he'll have his product in 99¢ bins for a long time to come. And not a moment too soon.