Mill Creek comedy classics #14: "Behave Yourself!" (1951)

Farley Granger wants some of that sweet Shelley Winters action in Behave Yourself!

The flick: Behave Yourself! (RKO Radio Pictures, 1951) [buy the set]

Current IMDb score: 5.6

Director: George Beck (never directed again, but wrote Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! for Bob Hope and Phyllis Diller and scripted a couple of Dobie Gillis episodes)

Henry Corden: Fred #2

Actors of note: 

• Farley Granger, (Alfred Hitchcock's Rope and Strangers on a Train)

• Shelley Winters (Lolita, Night of the Hunter, The Poseidon Adventure, etc., etc.)

• William Demarest (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Sullivan's Travels, played "Uncle Charley" on TV's My Three Sons, etc., etc.)

• Lon Chaney, Jr. (The Wolf Man, Of Mice and Men, almost 200 other movies)

• Elisha Cook, Jr. (Rosemary's Baby, The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, 200+ more)

• Hans Conried (The Great Dictator, voice of Captain Hook in Disney's Peter Pan, voice of Snidely Whiplash on TV's Dudley Do-Right)

• Sheldon Leonard (It's a Wonderful Life, Guys and Dolls, produced TV shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show, I Spy, Make Room For Daddy, The Andy Griffith Show, etc.)

• Henry Corden (The Ten Commandments, The Asphalt Jungle; the second guy to voice Fred Flintstone, a part he played on and off for 30 years)

• Francis L. Sullivan (Great Expectations, Oliver Twist)

• Margalo Gillmore (High Society, The Trouble with Angels)

• Marvin Kaplan ("Uncle Pooch" in David Lynch's Wild at Heart; regular on TV's Alice)

• Archie the dog (not a damned thing else, but his IMDb biography is amusing)

Other notables involved: The film was shot by master cinematographer James Wong Howe, whose fifty-year career includes such classics as Seconds, The Thin Man, and the live-action segments of Fantasia, plus a whole lot more. The title song was co-written by (of all people) Buddy Ebsen of The Beverly Hillbillies. It seems like the only non-entity involved with this film was its writer-director!

The gist of it: Poor dope Bill Denny (Granger) needs an anniversary present to appease his demanding wife Kate (Winters) and his even-more-demanding mother-in-law (Gillmore). A stray terrier, Archie (himself), follows him home and... voila! Instant, albeit accidental, anniversary present! Trouble is, Archie is a specially-trained dog who is very much wanted by two groups of crooks (including Kaplan, Corden, Chaney, Sullivan, Leonard, Cook, and Conried) who are very willing to kill to get what they want. What follows is a comedy of errors with a higher body count than the Tate-LaBianca slayings.

The original 1950 edition of Dianetics.

My take: Imagine an Alfred Hitchcock "wrongly accused man" thriller, only filtered through a dog-centric episode of I Love Lucy, and you've got sort of an idea what Behave Yourself! is like. Farley Granger, who memorably starred in two Hitchcock pictures, is the unlucky schmuck here. Throughout the film, his character's story keeps getting wilder and wilder as dead bodies and counterfeit money pile up. Time and again, Bill Denny innocently turns up at murder scenes and then has to explain himself to some very dubious policemen, led by hot-tempered O'Ryan (Demarest), none of whom are interested in his pitiful alibis about a stray dog.

The ad campaign for this flick clearly tried to present Granger's costar, Shelley Winters, as a curvaceous sex object. When she wears a dress with a low neckline in this film, her husband compliments her, "You've got the furniture for it!" Indeed, Shelley was a svelte and (by her own account) promiscuous young starlet in the 1940s and early '50s with a string of famous lovers whom she'd later betray in tacky tell-all books. She was pushing 30 when she made this film, and you can just see her becoming the Winters most of us know from her later years: the plump, bossy, hysterical loudmouth who amuses us while driving those around her to distraction. A mere 11 years later, she was the jealous mother of a teen sexpot in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita, a woman who would be insufferable if she weren't also tragic.

In Behave Yourself!, Shelley's character is supposed to be adorable, I think. She's sort of reminiscent of Lucille Ball here, only more mercenary and materialistic. Who else would marry this woman except the obviously-gay Farley Granger? His character is flustered, sweaty, and tongue-tied for virtually the entire running time, which gets a little wearying for the viewer. I almost wish this film had been made 20 years earlier with W.C. Fields in the lead role. This film's ending is a bit reminiscent of The Bank Dick, and Fields certainly would have been a more formidable adversary for Kate and her mother than weak-willed Granger.

Speaking of that mother-in-law, though, there is one truly fascinating little detail in the script that goes by so quickly you might miss it. A running joke is that the mother has a lot of pretentious, trendy interests, and among those is Dianetics, the Scientologist manifesto L. Ron Hubbard had published only a year before! This must certainly be among the first cinematic references to that highly controversial movement.

Oh, by the way, feminists and dog-lovers are likely to be appalled by the very last scene. What can I say? It was a different time.

Is it funny: Oh, sure, occasionally. Shelley Winters is her usual pain-in-the-neck self, but I was rather amused by her shameless greed and her casually forgiving attitude when she thinks her husband is a murderer. Considering all the famous character actors in the film, Francis L. Sullivan makes perhaps the strongest impression as rotund yet surprisingly elegant British gangster Fat Freddy, who makes his plans from a bubble bath while resting his head on an inflatable pillow.

My grade: B

P.S. - Nothing even close to a racial stereotype here. Again, no minorities whatsoever.

Fred Flintstone vs. George Jetson: Choose carefully, gentle reader

Which of these men leads a happier life?

Who would you rather be, George Jetson or Fred Flintstone?

I bet you said George Jetson. It seems like a no-brainer, right? I mean, George lives in a futuristic world of rocket cars, robots, and household appliances that do almost everything for you. Fred, meanwhile, lives in the Stone Age and doesn't even have shoes... or pants, for that matter. And George, with his cushy desk job at Spacely Sprockets, is clearly in a higher tax bracket than working-class Fred, who toils away at the quarry under the glowering eye of Mr. Slate. George is white collar, and Fred is blue collar—literally and figuratively.

But hold on, gentle reader! The choice may not be so obvious after all. You may have been so dazzled by all the sci-fi wizardry on display in The Jetsons that you failed to notice a simple truth: Fred Flintstone is a much happier man than George Jetson. Fred, in fact, is a deeply contented, untroubled man who seems wholly satisfied with his life (hence his carefree catchphrase, "Yabba Dabba Doo!"), while George frequently seems edgy and neurotic, possibly suffering from ulcers or sleep problems. 

Why might this be? Well, I have a few theories:

1. Fred has friends and a social life; George doesn't.

Barney and Fred at a meeting of the Water Buffalos. Don't they look happy?

The Flintstones is based on Jackie Gleason's classic sitcom The Honeymooners (1955-1956), while The Jetsons is modeled after Blondie, which started as a comic strip in 1930 and inspired a series of films (1938-1950). The voice of Jane Jetson was provided by actress Penny Singleton, who played the title character in the Blondie movies. But something important got lost along the way in translating Blondie from one medium to another: male friendship.

Like The Honeymooners, The Flintstones features a strong male friendship. Instead of Ralph and Ed, we have Fred and Barney. But while Blondie's suburban protagonist Dagwood Bumstead has a best friend, the uninspiring yet reliable Herb Woodley, there exists no such corresponding "best friend" character on The Jetsons. George Jetson does not seem to have a friend in the world. He has no social life away from work or home either. Again, this is in sharp contrast to Fred Flintstone, who bowls regularly with Barney (and other men his age, like Joe Rockhead) and is a member of a fraternal organization, The Loyal Order of Water Buffalos. These elements, again, were taken from The Honeymooners. Ralph, too, was a bowler and he and Ed belonged to the Raccoon Lodge.

Why has George Jetson been denied any meaningful friendships or social interaction in his life?

2. Fred has a more satisfying home life than George.

If you study the opening title sequences of The Flintstones and The Jetsons, you will see that they are mirror opposites of one another. Here, take a moment to watch both of them:

Notice that the first clip is about Fred leaving work and rejoining his family—and being overjoyed to do so—while the second is about George being separated from his family one member at a time before finally arriving at work, where he immediately falls asleep at his desk. 

In their book Harry & Wally's Favorite TV Shows (1989), TV critics Harry Castleman and Walter Podrazik pointed out that Fred "has no real problems." They meant that as a complaint, but I think it's part of what makes the character so appealing. Fred, like his clearest latter-day successor, Homer Simpson, simply loves his life and his family with abandon. Certainly, Fred and Wilma argue a lot more than George and Jane Jetson do, but I think this is just indicative of the fact that the Flintstones are passionate, vital people. They're alive, for god's sake! Meanwhile, there is something weirdly distant and cold about the Jetson marriage. Jane seems perfectly nice, but she is somewhat vacant and detached. I'm guessing a lot goes unsaid in this family.

Fred and George are both parents, but this fact causes George much more anxiety. Fred does not seem to be too hands-on in the raising of little Pebbles, but he is devoted to her and loves her unconditionally. With George and his kids, the relationships are more anxiety-plagued and complex. His daughter, Judy, is an adolescent—often a rocky time for parent/child interaction. George hates Judy's music, hates her friends (especially her boyfriends), doesn't understand her slang, and probably doesn't feel like he can communicate with her meaningfully and effectively. 

It's a mixed blessing, then, that Judy has the same pleasant but vacant temperament as her mother. George is spared from any emotional confrontations with his daughter, but over the long haul this may have a numbing effect on him. Feeling alienated from Judy, George naturally gravitates toward his son Elroy. But even here, George feels insecure. He recognizes that Elroy's intellect is quickly outstripping his own, and he worries that Elroy will soon "outgrow" his old man. This accounts for George's many ploys to win Elroy's respect, such as the sad "Nimbus the Great" fiasco (from the "Elroy's Pal" episode) in which George dresses as one of Elroy's TV idols. 

When it comes to being a husband and father, George has less in common with Fred Flintstone and much more in common with Lester Burnham, the burned-out suburbanite in American Beauty.

3. Fred feels more connected to his work and his environment than George ever will.

George Jetson at Spacely Sprockets: Just a cog in a machine.

What do we know about George Jetson's job? Well, we know he works for a company called Spacely Sprockets. Consider the humble sprocket, dear reader. It is a metal wheel with teeth, and its job is to mesh with a chain or track. It is worth noting that Spacely Sprockets' main competitor is Cogswell Cogs. Cogs, of course, have a great allegorical significance. To be a "cog in a machine" is to be merely a small part of a much larger operation. This is what George Jetson is: a human sprocket, a living cog. He's not even involved in the production of the actual, physical sprockets. Instead, he has some ill-defined position at what seems to be an isolated workstation staring at a monitor all day much like a present-day cubicle drone. 

George is not only alienated from his work, he is alienated from his own environment. Think about it. George Jetson lives in a hermetically-sealed world. He spends all his time indoors, totally cut off from nature in his sterile, artificial world of emotionless gadgets and recirculated air.

Now what about Fred Flintstone? Fred, as we have established, works at the local rock quarry in the open air. The rocks from the quarry are likely used to build the homes and structures of Bedrock, so Fred can easily see the results of his labors. More importantly, Fred can experience the natural world thriving all around him. Sunshine, rain, snow, the feel of grass, fresh air—these are luxuries enjoyed by Fred Flintstone but totally unknown to George Jetson. And Fred doesn't really seem to be hurting in the technology department. If anything, the radios, telephones, televisions, and airplanes of The Flintstones are more remarkable than any gadget seen on The Jetsons.

Which is your path, reader? The ancient past or the distant future? Select with caution.