Willie Howard, the star of this short, apparently had a successful New York stage act as a mad French professor before Educational Pictures decided to try starring him in a series of two reelers. That's a little counter-intuitive to me, since I would have though a stage act consisting of a man lecturing to a class for its duration would not lend itself to a series of different situations, but that's how it was.
This entry in the series starts with a disconnected classroom scene that may have been taken right from the act, in which the amusingly-named Professor Ginsbairge lectures on success and how to reach its "pinochle." It's a very funny doubletalk performance with a bunch of good one-liners, and demonstrates Howard's appeal.
Then the plot must get started, and it ends up involving the professor faking injury, getting confused with a famous surgeon, and then hitting on a woman he shouldn't. There's a kind of charming randomness to the gags here: for instance the events are set into motion by a safe that falls out of the sky next to Professor Ginsbairge, presumably just to complete the gag after he declares that "Nothing falls from a clear sky!" This is amusing and its contempt for traditional story is a little refreshing (it's almost proto-Pythonesque), but in this case it makes the short itself and the character feel a little thrown together and forgettable despite its laughs. The sequence where he is confused for the great surgeon because another person keeps cutting off his sentences is funny, be it doesn't make any sense why a person would do that, and it goes on a bit to long.
When he's not saying things just because they finish a gag (why exactly would he think that he could have kittens?), the professor character, put into action, becomes less a mad professor and more a kind of pseudo-Groucho with a French accent.
Nothing feels thought-out here in the least, but there are enough anything-for-a-laugh word games and bizarre situations to keep it funny all the way.
This entry in the series starts with a disconnected classroom scene that may have been taken right from the act, in which the amusingly-named Professor Ginsbairge lectures on success and how to reach its "pinochle." It's a very funny doubletalk performance with a bunch of good one-liners, and demonstrates Howard's appeal.
Then the plot must get started, and it ends up involving the professor faking injury, getting confused with a famous surgeon, and then hitting on a woman he shouldn't. There's a kind of charming randomness to the gags here: for instance the events are set into motion by a safe that falls out of the sky next to Professor Ginsbairge, presumably just to complete the gag after he declares that "Nothing falls from a clear sky!" This is amusing and its contempt for traditional story is a little refreshing (it's almost proto-Pythonesque), but in this case it makes the short itself and the character feel a little thrown together and forgettable despite its laughs. The sequence where he is confused for the great surgeon because another person keeps cutting off his sentences is funny, be it doesn't make any sense why a person would do that, and it goes on a bit to long.
When he's not saying things just because they finish a gag (why exactly would he think that he could have kittens?), the professor character, put into action, becomes less a mad professor and more a kind of pseudo-Groucho with a French accent.
Nothing feels thought-out here in the least, but there are enough anything-for-a-laugh word games and bizarre situations to keep it funny all the way.
