While the Cat's Away (1936) User Reviews

The Mice Don't Play Nicely

[boblipton · 6/10 · 19 September 2012]

Director Lloyd French had spent a good many years at the Hal Roach studio, so it's hardly surprising to find that this Vitaphone short borrows extensively from from two Laurel & Hardy shorts -- HELPMATES and UNACCUSTOMED AS WE ARE. While Shemp Howard is, as always, Shemp Howard, Johnny Berkes' performance is clearly modeled on Stan Laurel. There's even Anita Garvin on hand.

As a Laurel & Hardy fan I find it a bit unnerving to see some of the routines reused, but Shemp, although best as a supporting comic, certainly knows how to handle rough-and-ready comedy. His means of mixing hair of the dog is funny and he certainly keeps busy. Berkes, in contrast, just walks through his role, careful not to get in anyone's way and waiting for the payoff gag. The result is a good if not stellar comedy.

Shemp Howard stars in another short that looks like it stole most gags from better, early work.

[larry41onEbay · 6/10 · 22 July 2017]

I know Shemp can be good, but sometimes he was just trying to stay employed and just recycled other more talented comics previous material. I found a fragment of R2 and was trying to verify what it was and decided more of the plot need to be available for researchers who had not seen the whole thing so here it is. And it's for fans only.

SPOILERS:

With the wives out of town, two husbands have been living it up a little too much. The apartment's a mess, and the hangover never ends. A phone call from the ladies announcing an early return home leaves Henry and Johnny in a frantic rush to clean up. Efforts are complicated by a vacuum cleaner salesman whose trial model explodes, a loose parakeet, and a cat. The building super's wife comes to the rescue with her cleaner, but the boys manage to lose her dress in the vacuum. Henry and Johnny hide her in a trunk, when their wives and her husband choose that moment to arrive.