Customer Reviews

Charley's Aunt

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Charley's Aunt" is a famous British play which for many years was the staple offering of every English high school drama class. It is a rollicking farce about undergraduates at Oxford University, one of whom, Jack Benny, disguises himself as another's aunt from Brazil "where the nuts come from". The plot is full of romantic misunderstandings all of which resolve themselves for a happy ending. Jack Benny is an improbable English student but it does not matter. This was one of Benny's best films because he is hilarious in drag and all scenes with Edmund Gwenn, the enamoured professor determined to win his hand in marriage, are priceless. The other standout performers are Laird Cregar, at the time in his twenties and easily immitating a man twice his age and Kay Francis, a model of class and sophistication as Charley's real aunt. The film is simply directed, maintaining its stage bound roots. The print is immaculate preserving the crystal clear Fox photography and very bright lighting. Only the accents of some of the players betray that this is an American production, released in 1941.

The DVD is a neat package. It includes a commentary, the best of which speaks of Benny and his career and the worst of which methodically rattles off biographical details about all the players and the people behind the camera. This maybe informative but it becomes tedious and although the commentator has clear diction and enthusiastic delivery, he races the clock to get all the information out. There is also a good short with Benny promoting the film, but cleverly using Tyrone Power and Randolph Scott to promote simultaneous Fox productions. Both actors are more relaxed and personable than they often were on screen. A couple of postcard size lobby cards as well as marketing and on-set stills are included. Finally, some excellent liner notes actually provide a much better summary of the production than the verbose commentary.

The film makes an interesting comparison to an English variation on the play released at about the same time, starring Arthur Askey. I like both versions.

One of my fondest memories of my mispent youth was on Summer vacation watching re-runs of "The Jack Benny Program" on UHF. Sight unseen, I eagerly awaited the release of "Charley's Aunt" on disc. The film isn't a comic masterwork but it's a fun way to spend an hour and a half. Benny, predating Jack Lemmon's work in "Some Like It Hot", is a marvel as the English Earl posing as an Oxford classmate's aunt. His enthusiasm makes the film more than the sum of it's parts. The film also sports a great supporting cast that includes Richard Haydn, Edmund Gwenn("Miracle on 34th Street", and the late great Laird Cregar. If you need to see Cregar at his best check out the vintage noir "I Wake Up Screaming". Now if they would only issue "Buck Benny Rides Again" and "The Horn Blows at Midnight". It also wouldn't hurt if "The Jack Benny Program saw the light of day on disc.

Jack Benny had a checkered movie career and he himself felt most of his films were tripe, but three stand the test of time for hilarity. Buck Benny Rides Again (wherein it helps if you know his radio persona and his supporting cast), The Horn Blows At Midnight, and Charlie's Aunt. I would add a fourth - To Be Or Not To Be - which Mr. Benny himself thought his best work, but he didn't regard it as an out and out comedy. If you're looking for laughs for the whole family you can't go wrong with Charlie's Aunt. Jack steps out of his character and into a british fop impersonating a grand lady and plays the role terrifically. This was forty years before Tootsie, or Mrs. Doubtfire, and while Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams were at the top of their game, they relied heavily on prosthetics and modern fx, while Benny relied simply on that "look". The walk alone is worth the price of admission. The movie is taken from a stage play that became the standard comedy of it's time for colleges and high school revivals, so it's audience was built in in the Forties. Largely forgotten now because it had the unfortunate timing to come out the year World War II began it is well worth rediscovering. You'll laugh. And you'll laugh again. Then you'll laugh some more. And after all, that's what you're paying for.

The last version I saw of Charley's Aunt was the Broadway musical Where's Charley in which Ray Bolger and Frank Loessers music
made for a memorable evening of theater. I understand there is a film version that is not now available on disc from commercial sources. It is the original non-musical stage version we have here with the inimitable (and, at one time, much imitated) Jack Benny and a company of first rate players of the day, including Laird Cregar, Edmund Gwenn and Kay Francis. They give their all to the creaky plot and succeed in making it a pleasant interlude but nothing comparable to what it would have been to an audience which was accustomed to watch Weber and Fields, Smith and Dale, Ed Wynn, W.C, Fields, the Marx Brothers, and many others, for whom physical and verbal comedy were always intermixed in vaudeville and Broadway reviews. Jack Benny, breaking into the game when verbal gags and subtle bodily gestures were coming into vogue, billed himself as the suave comedian in vaudeville and had perfected the creation of his comic personae in that mode over the nine years of radio which preceded this 1941 film.
Its fun, like an extended skit that Benny, Hope, Gleason, and others would do on early TV, but it doesn't have the zing it could have had with others who were top physical and verbal performers (as were the combined skills of the ultimately- three Marx Brothers.
For me, who never fails to be entertained by Mr. Benny, it was worth watching because it shows him in action during the last years of his making films (ending, as so often portrayed on radio, with The Horn Blows at Midnight, ca. 1944, which was not the horrible failure he made it seem). For others, who may have watched him on TV (he died in 1973), it might have a touch of nostalgia, as well as its intrinsic comedy. For younger audiences, well, it might just hit your funny bone in the right way, but I would not want to predict that as the common experience for members of your age cohort.

Saw the DVD copy of this last night,and enjoyed it immensely.It's really funny,and the quality of the copy of a 1941 film is excellent. Comedy lovers age 10 and up should have fun with this,unless they only find profanity, crude/toilet humor and sexual innuendo a must,because they are absent from Charley's Aunt.

Fox finally comes through with a splendid DVD rendering of this long-hidden gem. I first saw this film on TV in the sixties as a teenager, and it made me as an actor long to do this play, which I subsequently read. While the Benny film somewhat streamlines the script, eliminating a few minor plot points and characters, the essence remains, as well as most of the great gags that are as funny today as they were over 100 years ago. Mysteriously (I gather due to rights issues, as the musical "Where's Charley?" vanished as well) this film disappeared from television for decades; I subsequently saw a stage production starring Nicky Henson at the Young Vic in London in 1977, and it reconfirmed what a hilarious vehicle Brandon Thomas's play could be. I finally achieved my dream of playing the role of Fancourt Babberly in 1992, and it is still the funniest comedy I have ever performed.
So it is with complete delight that I report that "Charley's Aunt" with Jack Benny, beautifully transferred to DVD, is every bit as funny as I remember, with a splendid cast (including "Miracle on 34th Street"'s Edmund Gwenn) supporting Benny in his best farcical role. A special delight is 30's siren Kay Francis, here bringing a sophisticated sensuality as the "real" aunt...this is probably her last great film role.

Charley's Aunt, with Jack Benny, is food for the soul. It is a sweet, slapstick comedy about college buddies upholding proprieties of the day in wooing their girls. Laird Cregar (Heaven Can Wait), one of my favorite actors, plays the charming father of one of the young men. It has a wonderful cast and endearing story. This film and a musical version,'Where's Charley?' followed the successful stage play.

Ordered early for requested birthday gift, this DVD arrived in a timely manner but when played, skipped in several places but too late for refund. Tried on several different DVD players, still skipped. We are not happy with this product. Very disappointing for a good movie.

The filmmakers rode roughshod over the play, adding dialogue and story elements and eliminating a whole character. The production values don't look that great either, with obvious studio settings. Jack Benny's British accent comes and goes - mostly goes - but he's terrific as the cross-dressing "aunt" and the comedy is fine. Fun to spot Richard Haydn, who played the agent in The Sound of Music, here as one of the Oxford undergrads. The DVD also includes a wonderful promotional short with Benny, Tyrone Power and Randolph Scott.

On stage and competently done, that ancient wheeze, "Charley's Aunt," can still work its magic, reducing whole audiences to howling laughter.

This version, even though it is more faithful to the original material than most screen adaptations, lacks some of that magic. It's good. It's funny. It could have been better.

The main reason to watch this old and nearly forgotten version of the even older farce is its star, Jack Benny. The main fault of this version of the old farce is its star, Jack Benny.

"Charley's Aunt" is a classic farce which practically demands a breakneck pace once Babs climbs into the big, black dress. Jack Benny was a comedian whose comic persona and shtick depended upon slowing the pace down to outright pauses. If you are at all familiar with the play, you can't help noticing how often the performer and the role are at odds.

This picture isn't bad, not at all, but it could have been a real classic if it had been cast with a more physical comedian than Benny, one with a swifter internal rhythm--the young Danny Kaye, for instance, or even Harold Lloyd, who was just one year older than Benny and still youthful enough to get away with it.

Four stars.