Six of a Kind (1934)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Leo McCarey

Writers:

Walter DeLeon (writer)
Douglas MacLean (story)

Release Date:

7 February 1934 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

When a respectable middle-class couple take a cross-country trip by auto, they share expenses with a decidedly oddball couple, none of whom know the car carries embezzled funds.

Plot Keywords:

Hollywood | Cross Country | Nevada | Alcoholic | Billiards

Cast

Charles Ruggles	...	J. Pinkham 'Pinky' Whinney
Mary Boland	...	Flora Whinney
W.C. Fields	...	Nuggetville Sheriff 'Honest John' Hoxley
George Burns	...	George Edwards
Gracie Allen	...	Gracie De Vore
Alison Skipworth	...	Mrs. K. Rumford
Bradley Page	...	Ferguson, aka Poogie
Grace Bradley	...	Goldie
William J. Kelly	...	A.B. Gillette (president, 2nd National Bank of Springfield)

Runtime:

65 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Paramount Ranch - 2813 Cornell Road, Agoura, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

One of over 700 Paramount productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since.

Quotes:

J. Pinkham 'Pinky' Whinney: Can you take care of us?
Hotel desk clerk: Oh, yes, I can give you a room and a hot bath now.
J. Pinkham 'Pinky' Whinney: You give me the room. I'll take the bath myself.

Movie Connections:

References The Old Fashioned Way (1934)

Pool

The idea in this is to take three comedy teams and combine them in one movie. The gimmick is that these represent three radically different types of humor. What happens usually is people find some things funny and ignore the others. Scan through these IMDb comments and you will see grace fall on different players in this.

The Fields poolplaying routine is priceless. I've seen it before but cannot recall where. But its inserted into this project without reference to anything else. Incidentally, it works as well as it does because there is a watcher in the frame, a deadpan face that is every bit as valuable and practiced as the actor.

That's indicative of how the experiment fails as a whole. If you know "Mad Mad Mad World," you'll know a successful example where comedic methods actually do bump up against each other and generate something resonant, rich, higher.

In this case however, the comedic models take turns. Isn't as effective.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.