Not a western, or a poker movie

One of the two-reelers that TCM ran on a Saturday morning at the end of their Saturday matinee block was an early Jack Benny short I had never heard of before: The Rounder. So I recorded it and wrote up this post for a day when I was planning on doing something like mentioning the new Star of the Month or some other shorter post on TCM programming.

This short starts with Benny, playing a man named Bartlett, doing what's supposed to be his drunk bit, stuck in a ladder and trying to get into his apartment because he's lost his key. Eventually, after some patter with a policeman, he gets in through the window, since nobody locked their windows in those days, although to be fair, this being an upper-floor window in an apartment building not directly connected to the fire escape, you'd think it would be hard for a burglar to break in without being noticed.

However, Bartlett doesn't wind up in his own apartment, but that of Ethel Dalton (Dorothy Sebastian). She's commiserating with her friend Mary (Polly Moran): Ethel was out with Mary, but saw that her boyfriend was dancing with another woman. Ethel needs a husband, or at least to be seen with the appearance of having a husband, so Bartlett's showing up unannounced is actually a good thing. Ethel asks Bartlett to pretend to be married to her and act as an escort, which Bartlett is willing to do for a fee.

But then Ethel gets a telegram from her boyfriend Alfred (George K. Arthur) saying that the women she saw dancing with him is in fact his sister. So Ethel's relationship with Alfred is back on, although of course Bartlett doesn't realize this. So things get awkward when Bartlett shows up the following afternoon and then so does Alfred, obviously knowing nothing about Bartlett.

The Rounder is one of the first films Jack Benny made where he wasn't playing himself; you may recall that he was the master of ceremonies in The Hollywood Revue where he was really able to show off his talent. Here, he's not able to do so in large part because the technical limitations of 1930 didn't quite fit with giving Benny's talky brand of comedy a fictional character. Benny, at the time, still really needed to be just behind a microphone. He'd quickly learn, of course, but this short doesn't do justice to his later talent. It's interesting to watch as a misfire, but it's not that great.