AFTER VIEWING THIS short and several others from the series lately. In addition to all of the superlatives and criticisms which we have heaped upon them there is one really positive attribute which has goner unnoticed, up until now that is.
Hollywood AND THE entire film industry had grown from a sort of cottage industry to that equivalent to a mini version of Steel, Oil, Railroad and Automobile. And thus it became the fifth largest industry in the USA. During this period of maturing, there had been a great deal of abandonment of certain basic and highly creative methodologies.
TAKE FOR EXAMPLE the way in which the old Masters of the Silents made a comedy short. Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Laurel & Hardy, Mack Sennett, Leo McCarey or whoever started not with a completed script; but rather with a much briefer outline of the general idea of where they were going with the "scenario." They then would feel their way through, adding, changing, adapting and improving as they progressed.
SO AS THIS sort of creativity was consigned to the scrap heap of "progress" in favor of the strict adherence to an extensively formalized and lengthily written Script. There were a few vestiges of holding out for the "old fashioned" ways. It was on the Warner Brothers Lot that the number one preservationist group could be found. This band of bold rebellious defenders included Richard L. Bare and George O'Hanlon of the Joe MC DOAKES Series.
THE CHOICE OF subject matter that would revolve around job promotion, office politics and personality vs. ability was sort of addressed in previous installments; but always in a peripheral manner. This is the first occasion that they pt he full spotlight on it.
IN THE BRIEF 10 minutes or so of the one reeler short, the production team puts poor Joe through a celluloid version of "running the gauntlet" as it was done in the Medieval Days. Rather than receiving multiple blows from clubs, bludgeons and bare fisted pounding, the subject had to endure failure upon failure with the resulting humiliations.
BETWEEN EACH "ROUND", Joe would be counseled by his more successful pal, Homer (Jackson Wheeler), whose strictly dispensed wisdoms and formal codification rivaled that of any governmental bureaucrats anywhere at any level. Even so, none of it worked.
WHEN WE ARRIVED at the final scene and blackout, we are greeted with a title card reading "30 Years Later". Both Joe and his boss are now graybeards and the boss (Emory Parnell still) is about to promote Mc Doakes. Whereas the running gag all through the short has been that the boss could never remember Joe's name. This time it was Joe who forgot his own moniker.
WELL SCHULTZ, THEY say that turnabout is fair play! (Whoever "They" are!)
Hollywood AND THE entire film industry had grown from a sort of cottage industry to that equivalent to a mini version of Steel, Oil, Railroad and Automobile. And thus it became the fifth largest industry in the USA. During this period of maturing, there had been a great deal of abandonment of certain basic and highly creative methodologies.
TAKE FOR EXAMPLE the way in which the old Masters of the Silents made a comedy short. Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Laurel & Hardy, Mack Sennett, Leo McCarey or whoever started not with a completed script; but rather with a much briefer outline of the general idea of where they were going with the "scenario." They then would feel their way through, adding, changing, adapting and improving as they progressed.
SO AS THIS sort of creativity was consigned to the scrap heap of "progress" in favor of the strict adherence to an extensively formalized and lengthily written Script. There were a few vestiges of holding out for the "old fashioned" ways. It was on the Warner Brothers Lot that the number one preservationist group could be found. This band of bold rebellious defenders included Richard L. Bare and George O'Hanlon of the Joe MC DOAKES Series.
THE CHOICE OF subject matter that would revolve around job promotion, office politics and personality vs. ability was sort of addressed in previous installments; but always in a peripheral manner. This is the first occasion that they pt he full spotlight on it.
IN THE BRIEF 10 minutes or so of the one reeler short, the production team puts poor Joe through a celluloid version of "running the gauntlet" as it was done in the Medieval Days. Rather than receiving multiple blows from clubs, bludgeons and bare fisted pounding, the subject had to endure failure upon failure with the resulting humiliations.
BETWEEN EACH "ROUND", Joe would be counseled by his more successful pal, Homer (Jackson Wheeler), whose strictly dispensed wisdoms and formal codification rivaled that of any governmental bureaucrats anywhere at any level. Even so, none of it worked.
WHEN WE ARRIVED at the final scene and blackout, we are greeted with a title card reading "30 Years Later". Both Joe and his boss are now graybeards and the boss (Emory Parnell still) is about to promote Mc Doakes. Whereas the running gag all through the short has been that the boss could never remember Joe's name. This time it was Joe who forgot his own moniker.
WELL SCHULTZ, THEY say that turnabout is fair play! (Whoever "They" are!)
