
Wheeler & Woolsey Movies in the 1940s
Wheeler & Woolsey Movies in the 1940s
Bert Wheeler once told his last stage partner Tom Dillon that he first caught HIGH FLYERS (1937) ten years later at a revival house. But it surprised me to discover just how many Wheeler & Woolsey comedies were reissued by RKO through 1949. The ad below is from a Lower East Side grind house showing of HIPS, HIPS, HOORAY! (1934) in 1946. (Considering the reception at the time of Abbott & Costello’s latest releases, perhaps it WAS considered that year’s "laugh riot”!):


"Of course he smiled -- just like you and me." -- Harold Goodwin, on Buster Keaton (1976)
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Re: Wheeler & Woolsey Movies in the 1940s
Ed, in those glory days of Howard Hughes buying and running RKO into the ground, realize that in 1949, the studio was desperate for any product to release. They were making very few films, and the ones they were making Hughes would sit on for years before allowing them to be released. There was a period in 1948-49 where pretty much the only thing being shot by RKO was Tim Holt westerns and other B product, so they were making it up with a lot of reissues and whatever independents they were distributing, like Walt Disney and the John Ford-Merian C. Cooper Argosy productions.
And considering the dearth of new quality comedy product being produced post-WW2, it's no surprise that RKO would dust off the back catalog of their most popular comedy team, especially considering how well Film Classics was doing reissuing Laurel and Hardy oldies at the time. Hey, Brown and Carney had quit making pictures by then, what else did RKO have?
RICHARD M ROBERTS
And considering the dearth of new quality comedy product being produced post-WW2, it's no surprise that RKO would dust off the back catalog of their most popular comedy team, especially considering how well Film Classics was doing reissuing Laurel and Hardy oldies at the time. Hey, Brown and Carney had quit making pictures by then, what else did RKO have?
RICHARD M ROBERTS
Re: Wheeler & Woolsey Movies in the 1940s
Richard, we’ve been told how the film industry turned its back on Laurel & Hardy after 1945 with no further film offers forthcoming. And yet even in the years before tv gave the team another lease on life, their Hal Roach films were constantly being shown in movie theaters during the 1940s thanks to the Film Classics reissues. Not just the features but their shorts also received big promotion, witness this May 1945 ad from The NY Daily News. One might imagine that studios wouldn’t be inclined to produce new L&H product when exhibitors already had plenty of L&H inventory to choose from, the competition had a cheaper rental price. The same thing pretty much happened to Abbott & Costello; Realart reissues of their massive Universal backlog continued to play theaters well after that team split in January 1957. Why produce new A&C movies when a late fifties audience was just as happy to pay and see ONE NIGHT IN THE TROPICS?


"Of course he smiled -- just like you and me." -- Harold Goodwin, on Buster Keaton (1976)
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