Blondie Knows Best (1946)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Abby Berlin

Writers:

Chic Young (comic strip characters)
Edward Bernds (story)

Release Date:

17 October 1946 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

DAGWOOD THINKS HE KNOWS THE ANSWERS...BUT BLONDIE Knows best (original ad - many caps)

Plot:

In order to close a business deal, Dagwood impersonates Mr. Dithers. While doing so he must avoid the nearly blind process server Jim Gray.

Plot Keywords:

Process Server | Neighbor | Truth Serum | Construction Company | USA

Cast

Penny Singleton	...	Blondie Bumstead
Arthur Lake	...	Dagwood Bumstead
Larry Simms	...	Alexander Bumstead
Marjorie Ann Mutchie	...	Cookie Bumstead (as Marjorie Kent)
Daisy	...	Daisy Bumstead, a Dog
Steven Geray	...	Dr. Schmidt
Jonathan Hale	...	J.C. Dithers
Shemp Howard	...	Jim Gray, the Process Server
Jerome Cowan	...	Charles Peabody
Danny Mummert	...	Alvin Fuddle
Ludwig Donath	...	Dr. Titus
Arthur Loft	...	Mr. Conroy

Runtime:

69 min | USA:72 min (original US 16 mm television syndication prints)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

USA:Passed (National Board of Review) | USA:Approved (PCA #11680)

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

The eighteenth of twenty-eight Blondie movies starring Penny Singleton as Blondie Bumstead and Arthur Lake as Dagwood Bumstead.

Movie Connections:

Follows Blondie for Victory (1942)

Soundtrack:

Put the Blame On Mame

Decidedly Inferior To The Comic Strip.

Chic Young's very popular comic strip has always been entertaining and was utilized by Columbia Pictures as foundation for the Blondie film series (this one is number 18 of 28!), yet it is puzzling to some as to the cause of the success of these movies as they are shot through with inanity, strongly the case here. In this chapter, Dagwood Bumstead's boss Mr. Dithers is involved in a verbal altercation over a parking space in front of his office, not realizing that the man with whom he is arguing is a person that he hopes to persuade into signing a lucrative contract, and when he discovers the fact, he cajoles Dagwood, whom he has just fired, to masquerade as him in order to complete the business deal. The impersonation entails Dagwood's entertaining the prospective client (with "borrowed" women) at a night club where circumstances prescribe that he be discovered by Blondie and after the expected commotion has simmered down, Dagwood serves as a subject for a team of odd scientists who are testing a truth serum and have offered him $500. The feeblest element within the Blondie films is Dagwood, interpreted by Arthur Lake as an individual who ranks barely above an imbecile with his grating one-note mannerisms quite far removed from Young's original so that chirpy Penny Singleton, as Blondie, seems far more substantive, in comparison, than she should. Some talented actors are wasted in this slapstick episode, including Steven Geray, Jerome Cowan, and Jean Willes, all defeated by their puerile dialogue with only little Marjorie Kent, as Cookie Bumstead, being effective (one of the few appealing elements of the series is the chronologic aging of the children); her winning performance is fitting as the targeted audience apparently is from three to four years of age, and torpid.