Wheeler and Woolsey

TCM is honoring one of the earlier comic duos in Hollywood history, Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, by showing four of their movies. Wheeler and Woolsey are, for whatever reason, not very well-remembered today. It's most likely because their work came at the beginning of the sound era, and the sound technology wasn't quite so ready for the more rapid verbal comedy that the pair did. (By the same token, the Marx Brothers' earliest works, such as The Cocoanuts seem quite dated compared to stuff just a few years later.) Also, they are a bit of an acquired taste, and not because of the fact that comedy dates over 80 years. However, Wheeler and Woolsey did a few movies with scenes in two-strip Technicolor, and are also responsible for the original movie version of Girl Crazy, which was later made into a Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland musical. However, Girl Crazy and the Technicolor movies aren't among the selections for tonight.