Let's mess with Judge Parker a little today, huh?

Ah, now that dialogue seems a little more natural.

Retired magistrate Alan Parker (no relation to the director) is rarely seen in Judge Parker, the long-running comic strip that bears his name. Most of the stories these days revolve around handsome, wealthy, arrogant lawyer Sam Driver and occasionally around Alan's dull lookalike son, Randy, who is also a judge. But today, the original Judge Parker himself is center stage in Judge Parker. And it feels all wrong.

To be honest, I read the strip every day and can't really follow it worth a damn. Lately, it's been on some kind of spy kick. Randy is married to April, a secret agent (?) who is being double-crossed by the CIA or something and had to abandon her husband without warning. See that baby Alan is holding up there? That's Randy and April's newborn daughter (or at least I think so). Don't know her name, sorry. Let's call her Cinnamon Bun. Alan has been taking care of Cinnamon Bun while his daughter-in-law is busy with spy stuff. I think April is in custody and is telling her side of the story to the media. And, all the while, Alan has been -- for reasons I cannot explain -- way more knowledgeable about all of this than most of the other characters. So now Alan's wife Katherine is mad at him.

Got all that? Good, 'cause I don't. If you need to know, over at The Comics Curmudgeon, guest blogger Uncle Lumpy has given us an excellent rundown of the characters in Judge Parker.

Today's strip finds Alan and Katherine at home, embroiled in a spat. But it's more like half a spat, because Alan is perfectly oblivious while his wife is increasingly irritated. This kind of marital dynamic seems less suited to Judge Parker and more suited to Bunny Hoest's unkillable domestic comedy The Lockhorns. So I decided to take Alan and Katherine out and put Leroy and Loretta in.

You're welcome, I guess.

P.S. - The next Judge Parker strip also reminded me of another beloved pop culture character.

John Banner, you are missed.

A heartwarming moment from today's 'Judge Parker'

No need to go on Maury, Randy. You are definitely the father!

I've had a love-hate relationship with the comic strip Judge Parker this year, especially when this long-running legal soap opera spent several months heaping misery and sorrow onto the smug, rich Driver family. I mean, sure, they deserved it. Big time. But after a while, enough was enough. That story seems -- at long last -- to have concluded, and the strip has shifted its focus from the Drivers to the Parkers. (Dig that symmetry, huh?) Specifically, hotheaded Randy Parker has just reunited with his estranged wife, April. And, to put it mildly, he didn't handle it well. But his temper tantrum did provide the inspiration for the parody you see at the top of this post. Here is the original for comparison.

Did someone ask for an Armadilloid version? No? Well, here's one anyway.

Isn't she lovely? Isn't she wonderful?

And why not a Mary Worth crossover, too?

I like how Wilbur's flowers match his/her glasses.

Mill Creek comedy classics #65: "Broadway Limited" (1941)

Broadway Limited is not about Broadway. It's about a train, a baby, and some other people.

The flick: Broadway Limited (United Artists release of a Hal Roach Studios film, 1941) [buy the set]

Current IMDb rating: 5.3

Director: Gordon Douglas (Niagara Falls)

Actors of note: 

• Victor McLaglen (frequently cast by John Ford in such films as She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Fort Apache, and Rio Grande; Oscar-nominated for his role in Ford's The Quiet Man; Oscar winner for Ford's The Informer)

• Marjorie Woodworth (Niagara Falls)

• Dennis O'Keefe (The Marx Brothers' Duck Soup, Scarface [1932 version], Top Hat, much more)

• Patsy Kelly (comedienne whose openness about being a lesbian brought her career to a standstill in the 1940s; she came back as a TV actress in the '50s and '60s and went on to do Rosemary's Baby, Freaky Friday [1976 version], etc.)

• Zasu Pitts (Niagara Falls, Life With Father)

• Leonid Kinskey (by far, best known for Casablanca; also appeared in Duck Soup, The Man with the Golden Arm, Trouble in Paradise, and much more)

• George E. Stone (Guys and Dolls, Some Like It Hot, Ocean's Eleven [1960 version])

• George Lloyd (ubiquitous character actor with hundreds of TV and film appearances from the 1930s to the 1950s; played Al "Happy Chef" Frazier in the MST3K favorite I Accuse My Parents)

George E. Stone

The gist of it: High-strung movie director Ivan (Kinskey) thinks his leading lady April (Woodworth) should be photographed with an "adopted" baby when she makes her train trip aboard the Broadway Limited from Chicago to New York. Ivan's faithful assistant Patsy (Kelly) enlists her boyfriend, befuddled railroad engineer Mike (McLaglen), to procure an infant that April can borrow temporarily for her journey. Mike offers an oddly-eager stranger named Lefty (Stone) $500 for the temporary use of a kid and then boards the Broadway Limited himself -- as a passenger rather than an employee of the railroad (though he's pressed into service at one point). Ivan and Patsy accompany April, as does Myra (Pitts), a ditsy and bothersome representative from the Chicago chapter of April's fan club.

By pure chance, while walking around the train, April happens to run into her old boyfriend, struggling young physician Dr. Harvey North (O'Keefe), who still loves April and wants to marry her but is certain that the baby she's lugging around is her biological child. Harvey is also convinced Ivan is the father, which leads to a rivalry between the two men. Meanwhile, Mike begins to suspect that the baby he "rented" is the same kidnapped child whose picture is in every newspaper in the country. One by one, all the other characters -- April, Ivan, Patsy, Harvey, and Myra -- come to believe that the baby is "stolen" and being actively sought by the police. So the little bundle of joy becomes a hot potato that everyone is desperate to get rid of. But every time they think they've ditched him, the little stinker keeps coming back to them like a boomerang! And now there are cops searching the whole train! What to do? What do do?

The Great Hall in Chicago's Union Station

My take: Trains are a surprisingly important part of my life. Every weekday morning, I take a Metra commuter train into Chicago to go to work. And every weekday afternoon, I take another one back home to get away from work. 

On holidays, I take an Eastbound passenger train, Amtrak's Capitol Limited, to visit relatives in another state. The Amtrak train departs from Chicago's historic Union Station, where one pivotal scene from this movie takes place. I'm pretty sure that this production just used some stock footage of Union Station and intercut that with footage of the actors saying their lines on a Hollywood soundstage, but it was still kind of neat to see a locale from my daily life depicted in a movie. The place is pretty neat in real life, too, so stop by the next time you're in the Windy City, even if you're not taking the train.

This is also another Hal Roach production, which generally has been a good sign in this project. After all, Niagara Falls was one of my highest-rated films in this Mill Creek set, and Broadway Limited has the same director and two of the same actresses as that one. (One character even mentions going to Niagara Falls for a honeymoon.) In terms of tone and structure, Niagara Falls and Broadway Limited are very much alike. At heart, they're both bedroom farces with plenty of misunderstandings, carefully-timed exits and entrances, and a lot of frantic running around by all concerned parties. And both take place in one confined location (in the former, a hotel; in the latter, a train), mostly over the course of one long, hectic evening.

Unfortunately, Broadway Limited is no Niagara Falls. There's nothing obviously "wrong" with it, per se -- other than the fact that it gets off to rather a slow start, belabors certain points at the expense of forward momentum, and presents a disagreeable, paranoid, chauvinist jerk (O'Keefe's handsome doctor character) as the romantic hero we're all supposed to be rooting for. Then there's the slight issue of a comedy being built around the kidnapping of an infant -- a child whose parents, we are told, are hysterical with grief. If Broadway Limited were a cynical, dark comedy, this might almost work. But instead, it's a bubbly, lighthearted, "feel-good" flick which repeatedly and shamelessly plays up the cuteness of the kid with its many, many cutaways to the young child actor gurgling delightedly at the bumbling antics of the grown-up characters.

While a good number of the film's jokes do work, especially as the story gets fully underway, I cannot help but feel that the chemistry is just a little "off" here. Instead of being a tasty cinematic dessert, it's more like a souffle which falls flat. As such, it rates only a tentative and conditional recommendation.

Renfrew: Zasu Pitt's ideal.

Is it funny: At first, not really. Eventually, though, some of the humorous elements of the film begin to percolate a bit. I liked, for instance, a running gag about a creepy, Eddie Munster-ish kid who repeatedly walks up to the beleaguered and overburdened Mike and just stares silently at him. Eventually the kid asks the poor guy a question: "Is that really your face?" Kinskey, McLaglen, and Kelly all play their roles to the hilt, which would be great if the script were a little funnier. As it is, their collective energy is kind of oppressive. I found myself wishing that they'd all stop shouting medium-funny jokes at me. When the bits are well-conceived, however, their performances are enjoyable. I laughed audibly when Kelly calms McLaglen down by saying she has a idea how to solve their problems, then reveals that her plan is to hand him the baby and then lock herself in her room until the trouble goes away.

Cheerful, oblivious Zasu Pitts is at the opposite end of the spectrum, as usual, and exists in her own little universe. She's always underfoot and in the way, getting on the nerves of the other characters without realizing it. In one scene, she blocks a narrow hallway so that other characters practically have to do gymnastics to get around her. In another, she shares a bed with Kelly and the baby, and Zasu's leaky hot water bottle causes Kelly to think that the infant has... well, you can guess.

The movie's best subplot, though, revolves around Zasu Pitts' undying devotion to a terrible-sounding radio show called Renfrew of the Mounted. My favorite scene in this film is the one in which Zasu's character, Myra, listens to Renfrew at full blast in a crowded club car and is clearly the only one enjoying the program. And when Myra isn't listening to Renfrew or dreaming about Renfrew, she's talking about Renfrew... even though no one else in the film gives a damn. The show obviously provides the kind of romantic escapism that many women now get from Twilight or 50 Shades. Myra's chief concern in life, in fact, seems to be whether or not Renfrew will "kiss her." We never find out who "her" is, but I assume it's the show's leading lady or love interest, i.e. the Bella Swan of her day.

Wonder if old Renfrew ever got around to it?

My grade: (barely) B-

P.S. - While it's not really a racist movie, Broadway Limited does (unwittingly) capture the racial dynamic of its era. The only black characters in the film are subservient porters and bartenders whose dialogue mainly consists of "yes, sir" and "yes, ma'am." Like everyone else in this movie, these men are required to react with astonishment at the goings on, but there are no bug-eyed Mantan Moreland shenanigans here.