{"id":38121,"date":"2022-11-04T20:20:13","date_gmt":"2022-11-05T00:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=38121"},"modified":"2022-11-04T20:21:47","modified_gmt":"2022-11-05T00:21:47","slug":"the-bootleg-files-in-the-devildog-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2022\/11\/04\/the-bootleg-files-in-the-devildog-house\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: In the Devildog House"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 818: <\/strong>\u201cIn the Devildog House\u201d (1934 short starring Clark and McCullough). <\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> On YouTube.
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\nAMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> None.
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\nREASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> It fell through the cracks.<\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> Not likely.<\/p>\n

Yes, the spotlight is back on the comedy team of Bobby Clark and Paul McCullough \u2013 and why not? For too long, their films have been overlooked \u2013 to the point that many of them are either lost or are in archives and cannot be easily accessed.
\n<\/p>\n

Their 1934 romp \u201cIn the Devildog House\u201d is an example of the neglect that burdened their legacy. The only easily available copy to view is a dismal print on YouTube that is blurry and has thick lines occasionally running vertically down the image. But even a cruddy-looking Clark and McCullough film is better than none.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Devildog House\u201d opens in the apartment of an oversized Marine named Smith (played by Tom Kennedy) and his wife Jennie (Dorothy Granger). The Marine tells his wife he is going off for two weeks of sharpshooting training, but she thinks he is having an affair with the blonde secretary of her neighbor Alan Fun (Bud Jamison), who runs a novelty toy company.<\/p>\n

After Smith departs, Jennie calls the start-up detective agency of Titwillow and Blodgett (Clark and McCullough), who are passing the time by fiddling with a strange grandfather clock. However, Jennie is enjoying the company of Alan Fun while her husband is away \u2013 but the Production Code was already in place by this time, so their rendezvous is limited to coffee in the kitchen.<\/p>\n

Before Smith leaves with his fellow Marines, he stops by the detective agency to hire the sleuths because he suspects his wife is unfaithful. Titwillow is out but Blodgett unilaterally agrees to take his case.<\/p>\n

The detectives visit Fun\u2019s novelty toy company and he assaults them with a variety of nasty joke gadgets including a telephone that sprays talcum powder, a bench that collapses when people sit on it and a tub of water that showers the duo when they exit the office. \u201cDon\u2019t get sore, boys, it\u2019s all in fun!\u201d laughs Fun when he abuses the detectives.<\/p>\n

As luck would have it, the Marines\u2019 training exercise is cancelled and Smith returns to his apartment building. Titwillow and Blodgett are in his apartment with Jennie, and Blodgett is sent out to get more ginger ale. Blodgett passes Smith in the lobby and confirms the Marine\u2019s suspicions \u2013 but then mentions that he\u2019s working on another case in the building. <\/p>\n

Smith returns to the apartment, and Titwillow fears he will be mistaken as Jennie\u2019s lover. His attempt to hide in a trunk is futile, but he manages to talk the Marine out of killing him with a stunt that will show Jennie has been faithful. Fun then comes in from across the hall and Titwillow hides him in a large trunk \u2013 and then convinces Smith to throw the trunk out the window.<\/p>\n

Titwillow and Blodgett watch from the sidewalk as the trunk falls several stories and lands among some garbage cans. Fun angrily calls the duo \u201cYou dirty double crossers,\u201d but Titwillow reminds him that \u201cit\u2019s all in fun\u201d \u2013 and the duo walk away whistling and tipping their hats to the camera.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Devildog House\u201d is not as frenetic as some of Clark and McCullough\u2019s best work, but it moves at a jolly pace and it represents an old-school slamming-door style of comedy that disappeared years ago. The film percolates in amusing bits, such as Clark and McCullough singing and dancing a riff on \u201cWho\u2019s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?\u201d and Clark nonchalantly taking Jennie\u2019s purse for money to send McCullough out to buy root beer.<\/p>\n

Many film lovers have complained that Clark was often too dominant, to the point of diluting McCullough\u2019s presence to a sidekick rather than an equal partner. That happens here in a scene when McCullough is absent (to get ginger ale) while Clark and Tom Kennedy share the screen. The scene brings out Clark\u2019s vices \u2013 overplaying the comedy, as if he was still on the vaudeville stage and he was performing to the last row of the balcony \u2013 but, mercifully, Kennedy was an able straight man and he keeps the scene from going awry.<\/p>\n

Also worth noting is Bud Jamison, the genial roly-poly character actor who displays a wonderfully malevolent streak when he is torturing Clark and McCullough with his practical joke toys and gadgets. If you only know Jamison as the foil to the Three Stooges\u2019 mayhem, this film can affirm he could dish it out as well as taking it.<\/p>\n

Recently, two long-unseen Clark and McCullough films \u2013 their 1931 Oscar-nominated \u201cScratch as Catch Can\u201d and the 1935 \u201cFlying Down to Zero\u201d \u2013 emerged on YouTube in pristine prints courtesy of the British Film Institute (BFI) and the BBC. \u201cIn the Devildog House\u201d is part of the BFI collection, and maybe a clean copy of the film can be licensed, too. Until then, we have to be content with this presentation: <\/p>\n