Variety Time (1948) User Reviews

Pre-Tonight Show Jack Paar as Emcee of Middling Variety Show

[saneatty · 5/10 · 23 October 2005]

This B Picture from 1948 is a throw-away variety show that pads its one-hour length with library footage and new segments. The segments are largely uninteresting. They include a recycling of the previous year's unfunny comedy short, "Hired Husband," excerpts from an unknown silent film (with narration), a couple of vaudeville acts, and an over-the-top performance by Cuban singer Miguelito Valdés of "Babalu," which would soon become the trademark song of fellow Cuban singer Desi Arnaz.

Though unexciting, this film is worth watching for the intros and outros delivered by emcee Jack Paar, who makes his debut here. Paar shows off the casual style and wry attitude that would become his own trademark when, ten years later, he would take over as host of NBC's Tonight Show (succeeding Steve Allen and preceding Johnny Carson). Paar also performs in a mildly amusing sketch featuring Hans Conried as "French singer" Rudy La Paix; Paar serves as lyric translator.

TCM shows this film from time to time. It's worth recording and fast-forwarding through to watch Paar in his hosting infancy.

I guess you have to be born in the right era to appreciate this film

[Eventuallyequalsalways · 7/10 · 9 May 2006]

I've read all the other comments about this variety program which is a hodge-podge of material selected with no apparent theme in mind other than comedy, and if you like vintage comedy, that's good enough for some of us. When TV was in it's infancy, material like this was readily available on the Ed Sullivan show, the Jackie Gleason show, and many other classic programs, and for those of us who grew up watching TV in an era when they would only broadcast for about 12 hours per day because there was not enough material available to fill an entire 24-hour schedule, then you will be very happy to see this type of stuff once again. The heritage of all the episodes is pure vaudeville, and though I'm not that old, don't forget that vaudeville entertained people for many more years than our modern TV era. So, I think all the other comments come from people who don't appreciate the comedic history of this delightful montage. If you like antiques, watch it and enjoy!

RKO Shorts

[boblipton · 6/10 · 23 October 2005]

Two comedy shorts from the RKO department -- one from the Edgar Kennedy series and one from the Leon Errol series -- and a few of musical shorts from RKO pasted together with a liberal dose of Jack Paar telling some mediocre jokes and introducing the shorts as if this were all intended.

Edgar Kennedy does a pretty good domestic situation comedy -- his RKO series lasted from about 1932 until his death the year this was released, 1948; Leon Errol's ran from 1933 through his death in 1951. RKO's short subject department was pretty lively through the 1950s. You may particularly enjoy, as I did, Jesse & James, a pair of acrobatic dancers in the vein of the Nichola Brothers. Paar's comedy monologue has not aged well and his sarcastic cutting up of a couple of silent movies, including D.W. Griffith's TWO PATHS and a William S. Hart short, done the year Griffith died, is in poor taste. Griffith has, it seems, aged better than Paar.

Variety Time? More like wasted time.

[vandino1 · 26 January 2006]

Well, this IS a hodgepodge, so it's bound to be hit and miss, but the misses far outweigh the hits. Jack Paar makes his first appearance on screen (and he tells you that at the beginning) as the host of this film/vaudeville collection. He already has his inimitable casual delivery down pat and delivers self-deprecating material, but it's forced and he seems uncomfortable with it. Film features two shorts, one with Edgar Kennedy that's okay and another with Leon Errol that's frantic farce but not particularly funny. The hodgepodge includes Jesse & James, a Nicholas Brothers-like acrobatic dance team that is quite good; as is an evocative "Babalu" dance number. Hans Conreid comes on to do a comic mis-translated French singing number that is humdrum, and Paar does jokey commentaries over some old silent movie footage. In fact, Paar is a dead weight throughout, flatly reciting patter that is stale to begin with, but could have been given some lift if a brighter, snappier personality had delivered it. More or less a curio.

Wishful thinking sinking.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 3 September 2014]

O.K., you've got to give RKO Radio credit for taking post World War II audiences down memory lane in this potpourri of comedy, specialty and a little bit of song and dance, all introduced by future "Tonight Show" host Jack Paar. "Yes, let's hear it for Pot Pouri", Dick Martin used to crack on "Laugh-In", but even the most dated of sketches on that late 60's cult T.V. show was funnier than most of what is here.

A newly filmed sketch of Hans Conreid portraying a supposed French singer of romantic songs who can only manage to say hello as he attempts to sing of unromantic items with eye-rolling narration by Paar. Slow boiling Edgar Kennedy manages a few laughs in a sketch involving home improvement which is anything but. Rubber legged Leon Errol pretends to be a butler so his divorced wife can try to get an inheritance from domineering aunt Minerva Ureval. The only relatively amusing part of this violent sketch is to see perennial drunk Jack Norton in a larger part than normal playing the ex-husband.

The narration over practically every type of silent movie mixed into one story ranks beyond insipid. An acrobatic dance number from "Seven Day's Leave" (1942) is very amusing, but if you love Lucy, chances are you've seen it. RKO made two more of these compilation fillers which are basically more of the same, and totally a major waste of time for classic movie veterans unless you have missed out on the Kennedy and Errol shorts.

Worth watching for a glimpse into the time capsule

[diamonddog · 6/10 · 20 January 2010]

Some very unamusing bits by modern comedic standards, but well worth watching for its nostalgic and historical value. Jack Paar isn't at his best in this film, but you can see the infancy of his style minus the emotional outbursts. And it will probably make you want to see more of the Errol and Kennedy shorts.

One thing I found most interesting was that the bits with Paar - specifically the one with Paar and Conried - appeared to be filmed with three cameras, which would later become a common television production practice. (Maybe Desi Arnaz wasn't so original after all.) I give it a 6/10 just because I'm a nostalgia buff.

Worth watching, nostalgic.

[thatsrich · 6/10 · 13 May 2006]

Paar is very smooth, and funnier than a lot of stuff around today. The novelty dance trio mentioned by the earlier reviewer is a knockout. Almost literally. It's good to have some of this vaudeville preserved so that audiences today can see how really hard these folks worked. The tap dance duo is also worth watching for. Comedy fans may be interested in the prehistoric sitcoms with Leon Errol and Edgar Kennedy. Paar helps us have a good laugh AT the two silent films that are shown in brief. Very corny stuff. Some of the bits don't even come close to working, such as the Hans Conried sketch. Thank goodness for TiVo so you can zip through some of the bad stuff and catch some unique and nostalgic stuff.

Cripes! No wonder RKO went under

[marcslope · 24 October 2005]

Gruesome collection of RKO cast-offs, with a few variety acts bolstered, if that's the word, by large swatches of two shorts with Leon Errol and Edgar Kennedy. These last two play like prehistoric versions of UPN or WB sitcoms, all obvious slapstick and cross-eyed slow burns. Interspersed are some negligible specialty dancing, big bands, and silent shorts with "comic" sub-MST3K commentary. Jack Paar, in his screen debut, does maintain some Bob Hope aplomb, even though his jokes about Hollywood circa 1947 aren't funny. There are two lovely minutes of the great vaudevillian Pat Rooney clog-tapping to "The Daughter of Rosie O'Grady," and a slapstick dancing threesome are noteworthy if only for their sheer bizarreness. The rest can be fast-forwarded through.