SilentComedyMafia.com

I frankly like the Edgar Kennedy RKO series the best in the 1937-40 period when they weren't doing the "Average Man" Family format. He's usually working with Billy Franey and there are some fine comedies in these years. here's one:







RICHARD M ROBERTS

Why is it these comedies are still hard to come by? A dozen or so were released during the VHS years and then pretty much the same set of shorts were released on DVD. These shorts never played in my TV market growing up -- even though, as Richard likes to point out, they are perfect TV situation comedy fodder. The only time I ever got to see them consistently was my high school years when various shorts were played in the auditorium during the daily 2 hour lunch block. 16mm prints of Roach, Columbia and RKO sound shorts would run continually and students were free to come and go as they pleased according to their schedule. Think of that. Classic film was so prevalent in the 1970's that you could watch rarely seen shorts at school. Now that's what I call a Liberal Education. I would then rush home after school, pull out my Leonard Maltin book and check off which new shorts I had seen.

Outside of that opportunity Kennedy shorts were few and far to come by for me. Even at film festivals it would be his short that would get bumped in the schedule. Just last year SLAPSTICON was unable to secure an early Kennedy short that they had schedule. It just seems that his shorts are snake bit to find a wider viewing audience. Is it similar to when RHI kept the wraps on L&H for so long?

RKO comedies were a staple during the early days of American Movie Classics. Oldies.com has three volumes of the RKO Kennedys and perhaps a similar number of the Leon Errolls. And VCI had both a Kennedy set and an Errol set on DVD for awhile, and these may still be in print.

Ron Hall and Bob Campbell are working on an Edgar Kennedy DVD project. It did not get enough donations through KickStarter, but I'm sure that they will try something else to get these comedy gems released. There is also a Facebook Fan Page for the project.

One of my favorites is...

Gary Johnson
The only time I ever got to see them consistently was my high school years when various shorts were played in the auditorium during the daily 2 hour lunch block. 16mm prints of Roach, Columbia and RKO sound shorts would run continually and students were free to come and go as they pleased according to their schedule. Think of that. Classic film was so prevalent in the 1970's that you could watch rarely seen shorts at school. Now that's what I call a Liberal Education.

My high school did the same thing, along with occasional silent comedies like Laurel and Hardy's FROM SOUP TO NUTS. During the 1970's our local UHF, WSBK channel 38 Boston, broadcast Edgar Kennedy and Leon Errol RKO shorts late every weekday night after 11:00 for an hour. I watched many with my dad who really liked Errol and Edgar too.