Burns and Allen

I've been watching some of the George Burns & Gracie Allen shorts and TV episodes available on YouTube. I watched one tonight called 100% Service, a short subject they made in 1931. It's little more than a filmed vaudeville sketch consisting of banter between the loopy Gracie and the bemused George, which is really all they needed to be funny. Burns & Allen never really became top-billed movie stars, typically appearing in supporting parts or with ensemble casts, as in International House or Six of a Kind. Aside from their vaudeville performances, which of course we have no real record of, they were probably at their best in radio (and later on TV). Their comedy was perfectly suited to this shorter format where they could present their sketches.

I was talking with someone about this just the other day. Comedians who did some of their best work in movies are at an advantage, because those movies are still readily available for the most part, and represent the comedians well. W.C. Fields, The Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, and others had their reputations cemented largely on the basis of their movies. But there are so many other wonderful comedians out there whose recorded performances may consist almost entirely on radio or later TV, and you sometimes have to go out of your way to seek out their best work and appreciate how brilliant they were. 

Jack Benny is a good example of this, I think -- he made one great film, To Be Or Not To Be, which despite its considerable strengths was not really characteristic of his other work (although Benny was perfectly cast as the vain Shakespearean actor). He did appear in a slew of other movies of varying quality, sometimes as a star and sometimes in a walk-on or cameo. If you judged him only on his film work, you might say he was an amusing presence in a few good movies. But to experience his radio -- and later TV -- work is to see why he ranks among the very top tier of comedians. 

Fred Allen is another good example of this. One of the absolute geniuses of comedy on the radio.