Baby Daze (1939) User Reviews

This one delivers

[hte-trasme · 7/10 · 17 December 2009]

Edgar Kennedy specialized in playing characters who might start out friendly enough, but over the course of a film or a sequence are subjected to so many frustrations and obstacles (often from such expert chaos-bringers as Laurel and Hardy) that they gradually are overcome with fury. It made a reliable premise for Edgar's own series of "Average Man" two-reel comedies, where he plays a husband who is driven up the wall by the annoyances of modern life.

Here, however a lot of the comedy comes from the familiar formula being reversed. Edgar starts out in a non-unfamiliar grumpy mood and tells some people off obnoxiously, then becomes overcome with joy and kindheartedness when he discovers that his wife is about to have a baby (or so he thinks). This alone works surprisingly well for comedy. As another IMDb commentator points out, there is something a bit sad and poignant about Edgar's apparently fervent but by now apparently hopeless desire for offspring, and the way he regrets the way he's been acting we he discovers he's to be a father. In fact, the final scene in which he discovers he was wrong comes across as if Kennedy were a fine actor in a drama rather than a comic -- his tragic disappointment is palpable.

"Baby Daze" relies on the good old fashioned comedy of confusion and dramatic irony to keep it going for most of its fifteen minutes and this works fine, even when we have to buy that the OTHER Mr. Kennedy came into the maternity ward right before Edgar. Somehow the fact that he supposedly never noticed his wife was pregnant seems more in character than an oversight.

funny and worth seeing...but also a bit wistful and sad.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 29 August 2009]

I enjoyed this Edgar Kennedy short, as it was funny and well acted and written. However, in a way, the film was also rather wistful and sad--an odd combination with comedy.

The film begins with Edgar coming home to his wife. On the way inside his house, he yells at the neighbor kids and once in the house he yells at his father-in-law. He's a bit of a sorehead, but you can also understand his feelings about his in-laws--they are all pretty obnoxious people. When his wife asks Edgar if it's okay for her terrible brother and his family to come for a visit, Edgar understandably says a loud and firm 'no'. However, in an odd twist, Edgar thinks that his middle-aged wife is pregnant and that the brother and sister-in-law are visiting to help her with her new baby. The baby, however, is the brother and sister-in-law's.

Now that Edgar thinks he's about to become a father, his entire mood changes. He's nice to everyone--including the neighbor kids and his in-laws--inviting them all to visit. Oddly, his wife doesn't appear the least bit pregnant and yet Edgar is convinced that the baby is coming--very, very soon. In a funny twist, when a neighbor is taken to the hospital to have her baby, Edgar thinks it's his wife and goes to wait for "his baby" to be born.

While there's more to it and it's all funny, there is also a wistfulness about it. Think about it, Edgar and his wife are probably too late to have kids in the short film but he thinks that the unthinkable has happened and now late in life he's to be a dad. When he later sees his brother-in-law's kid, he thinks it's his and dotes on the child--yet ultimately he finds that this wonderful dream is a bust. How depressing! This does give the short much more depth than usual but also ends on a bit of a downer. Still, it's well worth seeing--even if Edgar ultimately is left depressed and without this child he appears to desperately want. I think I'm gonna cry....

Bittersweet Short Subject

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 17 February 2011]

Edgar Kennedy and his wife Vivien Oakland could be the ancestors for Ralph and Alice Kramden. Kennedy made a nice series of two reel comedies with that patented slow burn technique of his. All he would have needed is a bus driver's uniform and you would swear you were watching a Honeymooner's episode.

But this one is kind of bittersweet as poor Edgar gets the wrong idea that his wife is in a family way, though without her showing anything I'm not quite sure how. In fact it's her sister and brother-in-law coming to visit with their new baby.

But once Edgar gets the idea he's an impending father, he gets a complete change in personality. As he begins selling off furniture to acquire nursery furniture, it's not funny so much as sweet. The laughs come as he's in the waiting room with expectant fathers at the hospital. They've never had a father to be quite like Edgar Kennedy.

Baby Daze is a nice introduction to the Edgar Kennedy slow burn school of comedy, though short on laughs, long on character.

Slow Burn

[tedg · 13 September 2003]

Spoilers herein.

This is included as an extra on the `The Southerner' DVD and is much the better experience. Both films represent a lost attitude in film. This one is worth re- experiencing: the Slow Burn flummox that was invented by this guy, continued in many radio series (`Guildersleeve' is the best), to be mastered in my experience by Ralph Kramden.

The setup is disposable, but the reactions are amazing. That's because we can see something that is now hackeyed when it was fresh.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

What to Expect When You're Expecting.

[ExplorerDS6789 · 7/10 · 4 April 2022]

As avid viewers of Edgar Kennedy's shorts know, he was never very fond of children. Many is the time you would see him get fed up at the little ragamuffins and shoo them away. He always said never work with children or animals... oh, wait, I'm confusing him with W. C. Fields. Mr. Kennedy has worked with kids before, as he was Kennedy the Cop in the Our Gang shorts. Throughout his illustrious career, I'm not sure if Edgar ever actually played a father. I've seen a handful of his RKO shorts and when he played foil to Laurel and Hardy, and while he has been a family man, you have to wonder what it would have been like if Edgar had played a father. Well, there was a time in 1939 where he almost came close. It was a situation involving a classic misunderstanding, and how well Edgar took it in stride, thrust in a situation that most people would assume he hated, but perhaps ended up helping him in the long run. It all started when Vivian and Pops were planning to let Joe and Ella, relatives who had just recently had a baby, come and live them for a little bit until Joe found a job. As Vivian looked over an adorable set of baby jammies she bought for the infant, she was sure Edgar wouldn't mind. Well, after shooing away some troublesome youths from playing in his driveway, Edgar storms into the house and is immediately prodded by his wife to allow a "visitor" stay with them. He immediately realizes it will be 'Deadbeat' Joe and Ella and squashes her request, making her quite upset. However, when Edgar discovers the baby jammies, he starts to wonder if maybe they weren't the only visitors to whom Vivian was alluding. Overwhelmed with joy, Edgar allows for the relatives to stay with them and even gives Vivian and Pop some money before heading out to buy cigars. Figuring his nice streak would be temporary, they hurry out to pick up Joe and Ella. Upon returning home from his stogey run, Edgar sees an ambulance drive away from his house, unaware that they had only stopped there to change a flat tire. He was unable to stop them, but he did get the hospital's name off the vehicle and hurried down there immediately. I wonder if perhaps Edgar isn't very familiar about the length of the gestation period of human beings. His wife clearly didn't look pregnant when he discovered the news, and now he thinks she's gone into labor. Either that, or to his knowledge, she'd been somehow hiding it for nine months. Regardless, he hurries down to the hospital, arms full of toys for the newborn, and was sent to the waiting room, which was jam-packed with other nervous, expectant fathers. I'm sure you've seen this before in these early comedies about fathers being in worse shape than the mothers, and due to the Hays Code, there was no way they could show someone actually giving birth. You remember, they couldn't even say the word "pregnant" back then, in movies or television, they always had to use euphemisms, like "expecting" or "bun in the oven" or "little visitor." Now look, I'm not trying to discredit expecting fathers, as it's an extremely stressful situation when your wife is in labor and you can't be in there with her. Also, if one of those fathers looks familiar, particularly the one lying on the couch, that's because it's Jack Rice, better known as Brother from Edgar's "other" family. Gosh, just imagine Brother procreating. Well, there was that one Kennedy short where they had Nephew, along with Brother and Mother, but that's another story.

Seated in the room of high anxiety, Edgar meets a man who has a notch on his cane for every flower that blossomed from his seed, and he's been doing it for thirty years, pun intended. Good for him. Just then, the doctor came in to inform Mr. Kennedy that his wife gave birth to a bouncing baby boy. Edgar was ecstatic, thinking it was for him, not knowing that there was another Kennedy at the hospital that day. Understandable, considering Kennedy is such a popular name. Naturally, Edgar wants to go right up and see them, but the doctor informs him that as a rule, they don't allow anyone to see the mother or new baby for twenty-four hours. I would like to go on record and say that this is a very unrealistic rule, and it was done here purely to keep the plot moving. After all, this is a 15-minute short and we've only hit the ten minute mark. I imagine if this rule were real, new fathers would be even more frustrated. Can't see their wife or child for a day? Outrageous. Since Edgar doesn't even have a nursery set up, the doc suggests he work on that in the meantime. His and Vivian's bedroom was the only feasible place in the house that would do for a nursery, Edgar hires a bunch of contractors, who actually look more like gangsters, to trade out his old bedroom furniture, giving him an allowance for nursery equipment. These guys see Edgar as the perfect fish, especially when he demands only the best and that price is no object, at which point they begin secretly lowering his allowance and raising their own rates. Regardless, they do a fantastic job of transforming that bedroom into the perfect nursery. Crib, drapes, toys, the works, even a train set which Edgar was down on the floor playing with. It was about this time that Vivian and Pop return home with Joe and Ella, along with their new baby. Sheesh, how far away do they live? They must have been gone a good 5 hours. Anyway, the nurse carries the baby upstairs and Edgar, immediately assuming it was his, scoops him up, delighted to finally meet his new son. While this is a very nice display, it's going to be all the more tragic when the truth is revealed. When Joe and Ella see the nursery, they're thrilled, and a tad confused as to why Edgar went to all that trouble for them and their baby. That's when the truth got out: Vivian wasn't pregnant at all, and this was all for his new nephew. Well, that's still a new baby in the family tree, even if it isn't a son, he'll still have a swell uncle in Ed. Vivian thinks the whole thing is cute, and that's when sleeping arrangements are made out, and guess who gets the couch? Well, unlike the other shorts where Edgar goes through a world of trouble for nothing, that may not be the case this time. Maybe at some point he and Vivian can discuss the possibility of one day having the pitter-patter of little Kennedys running around the house. Heck, they've already got the nursery and everything.

This is one of my favorite Kennedy shorts, as it isn't mean-spirited, Edgar's temper doesn't cause him any trouble, it was all just a wild misunderstanding that isn't completely over-the-top. The acting is pretty good, the gags are great, this was definitely a home run. If you haven't already seen it, I recommend Baby Daze. Perhaps Edgar's situation is one you can relate to. Maybe you want a baby, maybe you don't, maybe you've been an expectant father. That reminds me, another good short film about expectant fathers would be So You're Going to be a Father with Joe McDoakes (George O'Hanlon), except there, he really does become a father. Plenty of good gags about a man who was previously uninterested in having kids now suddenly very excited when his wife mentions a "little visitor". The ending gag with O'Hanlon in drag playing his daughter is pretty funny. I recommend that too. If you can find them, give these shorts a look, and see that adjusting to fatherhood was just as hard in the 1940s as it is now.