Charley’s Aunt (1941/Fox)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: B     Film: B-

 

 

Jack Benny is one of the great comic talents of his era, from his radio days as one of the biggest stars it ever had to great TV appearances.  However, his feature film work was always mixed and notoriously so.  Fortunately, Archie Mayo’s Charley’s Aunt (1941) is one of his best films and very funny at that.  Benny plays Lord Babberly, who has to cross dress as the title character to help two university students.

 

For material that is 115 years old (George Seaton adapted the Brandon Thomas play) as this DVD arrives, it is a very durable piece of comedy.  Even when overdressed, Benny often still talks as himself only sometimes doing an “aunt” voice, which is funny since the humor of such a situation is to usually do such a voice to death.  That gets obnoxious.  But Benny is smarter than that and that is why this works.  Kay Francis, Anne Baxter, James Ellison, Reginald Owen, Edmund Gwenn and Richard Haydn also star.

 

The 1.33 X 1 black and white image looks good and was shot by J. Peverell Marley (Of Human Bondage, the 3-D House of Wax) and despite the confines of the material being based on a play, this film never feels that phony.  It may feel like a TV sitcom at times, but not in a bad way.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo and Mono options are fine, though the Stereo was a bit better in this case.  Extras include an original promo short for the film, stills and a very informative audio commentary by fan/scholar Randy Skretvedt about the film and especially the careers of Benny and company.  Nice to see this history being put on record.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo