The Happy Hottentots (1930) User Reviews

Vaudeville Is Dead

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 11 May 2009]

The Happy Hottentots is one of the few filmed records of the artistry of Joe Frisco, the famed stuttering comedian who took one lemon of a handicap and made it lemonade. We were lucky that Bryan Foy, son of another vaudeville legend produced this Vitagraph short for Warner Brothers.

What you see in The Happy Hottentots is what happened to vaudeville when sound motion pictures came in. Guys like Frisco and his partner Bob Callahan in these shorts were performing between films while the projectionist was changing films.

So when Billy Gilbert the stage manager tells them to go on with their act on they go, ad infinitum, getting worse and worse each time and emptying the theater gradually. It's funny, but also quite sad.

Frisco himself was a notorious gambler, a lot of his comedy monologue was concerned with his bad luck, but his addiction to the bet. He was like that other wit Will Rogers who started out as a trick rope artist who told funny stories. After a while Rogers didn't need the rope.

So it was with Frisco who didn't need the song and dance. He was a great favorite of Bing Crosby who had him on his radio show a lot and admired the man's wit. I only wish we had more of it in this short.

Exactly who WERE these Hottentots, and WHY were they so happy?

[tadpole-596-918256 · 5/10 · 22 May 2013]

Joe Frisco plays one of the "Reece Brothers," but he's not actually a Reece OR a Frisco, but rather Louis Wilsonn Joseph of Milan, IL. Bob Callahan plays the other "Reece Brother," even though he actually DID have a brother act with his sibling Chuck, and Bob Callahan WAS his birth name in Lima, OH, Nov. 10, 1896. Sadly, Bob passed away in Hollywood in 1938 at the age of 41, so he was not available to HOTTENTOTS director Bryan Foy when he produced such triumphs as WOMEN IN THE WIND (1939), GRANNY GET YOUR GUN (1940), or THE NURSE'S SECRET (1941). Which still begs the question, who WERE these Hottentots, and WHY were they so happy? This lame 10 minute, 42.16-second sketch from 1930 wears out its welcome very quickly, and then drags on longer than the wait for Godot. (I kept watching in hopes of hearing Lucky's speech, but no such luck.) The stage backdrop in front of which the "Reece Brothers" try to entertain has ads on it, which now are cruelly branded onto my brain, perhaps forever: A.R. Crow Chop Suey; Dr. Howe's Gent's Furnishing; Surrey Drug Store; Guy's Pharmacy--741 Pike St.; Ketcham & Cheatham Real Estate; Hill's Creamery; Sunrise Florist; Jones Co.; and Green Hotel: 200 Rooms (hope they have HBO; one really needs it after 10 minutes plus of the "Reece Brothers").

Joe Frisco

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 15 September 2019]

Vaudeville comedian Joe Frisco stars in this short subject that stretches a gag out of all proportion.

Frisco and friend Bob Callahan decide to form an act and they get a booking in a movie theater. This was when vaudeville was dying and acts took what work they could find. Movie theater manage Billy Gilbert hires them to fill in between features and be ready at a moment's notice to go on stage.

Gilbert wasn't kidding as Frisco and Callahan keep going on and on, never getting a chance to eat or sleep. Must have been a 24 movie show.

The gag wasn't funny enough to carry the whole short subject. Still this is a good place to see Joe Frisco who was one of the best in vaudeville.

J-J-Joe Frisco was f-f-f-funny!

[F Gwynplaine MacIntyre · 29 May 2002]

Joe Frisco was a big-name comedian in the 1920s and '30s, starring on Broadway and headlining in vaudeville. But he made very few movies, so he's now almost totally forgotten. Frisco usually played a stuttering character (possibly the inspiration for Porky Pig) and he had a very funny eccentric style of soft-shoe dancing. In "The Happy Hottentots" (ignore that irrelevant title), Joe Frisco is a vaudeville song-and-dance man, as he was in real life. This movie is directed by Bryan Foy, the eldest of the Seven Little Foys. A vaudeville veteran from early childhood, "Brynie" Foy also wrote the famous song that ends with the line "Absolutely, Mr Gallagher? Positively, Mr Shean!"

"The Happy Hottentots" reeks of low-class vaudeville in all its seedy glory: not only is this film hilarious, but it also captures the true spirit of American vaudeville. The (very funny) plot of this film is based on a true incident which actually happened to a vaudeville song-and-dance team named Duffy and Sweeney.

In vaudeville days, the most prestigious theatres (such as the Palace on Broadway) were "two-a-day" houses, where big-time vaudeville stars performed their acts just twice daily. A slightly less prestigious act would perform at a "three-a-day" theatre, and so on down the scale. The worst acts in vaudeville (who got booked into the most downmarket theatres) played eight-a-day. Eight shows a day would be murder, especially for an act involving a great deal of physical exertion, such as a song-and-dance team or an acrobatic troupe. In "The Happy Hottentots", Joe Frisco is so far down the vaudeville ladder, he's performing fifteen-a-day!

Joe Frisco and his buddy Bob Callahan portray two vaudevillains who team up as a song-and-dance act. They get a booking at the world's shabbiest vaudeville theatre, where the stage manager (played by veteran comic actor Billy Gilbert) tells them to get ready to perform **A LOT** of shows. Joe and Bob do a song-and-dance turn to "Mandy Lane", a popular ballad of the time. The first time they go onstage, Joe Frisco does a little of his snappy dance routine, with his cane and his bowler hat. The SECOND time Joe and Bob go onstage, the dance is a bit less snappy. The THIRD time ... well, you get the idea. Joe and Bob haven't time for a lunch break between shows, so Billy Gilbert throws them a couple of ham-on-rye sandwiches. (The bread is full of caraway seeds, but some of the "seeds" have got legs and they're moving!) Joe and Bob have to eat their sandwiches onstage while dancing to "Mandy Lane" and singing with their mouths full! By the time Joe and Bob are doing their fifteenth reprise of "Mandy Lane", they're practically zombies. Frisco is hilarious, doing the same routine over and over but getting more slipshod each time as he approaches exhaustion.

I shan't spoil the very funny ending for you. Douglas Gilbert's book "American Vaudeville" tells the whole story (including the pay-off) as it actually happened to Duffy and Sweeney, when they were forced to perform endless choruses of "I'm Going Back to Arkansas Tomorrow".

Joe Frisco was a very funny man, onstage and off. There are dozens of great anecdotes about him. One time, a booking agent phoned Frisco's hotel room and offered him a vaudeville booking at $500 a week. Frisco turned it down, demanding $1,000 a week. The agent suggested that Frisco come round to his office and negotiate. "I can't come to your office," Frisco said down the phone line from his room at the hotel. "If I leave here, I'll get locked out of my room." True story. Some of the funniest yarns about Joe Frisco are only barely printable. Unfortunately, he was a gambling addict who blew all his money on the gee-gees, and he died broke. The career of Bob Callahan (who plays Frisco's vaudeville partner here) was cut short by his severe psoriasis, which explains why Callahan wears black gloves during most of this movie.

It's a pity that S-S-Stutterin' Joe Frisco made so few films. But "The Happy Hottentots" is hilarious. Fans of Billy Gilbert will be pleased with his contribution. I'll rate this movie 10 points out of 10 (maybe eleven), and I heartily recommend it.

Funny...I think not.

[planktonrules · 1/10 · 23 January 2010]

'Hottentots' is a negative term used to describe black African natives. Oddly, this seems to have absolutely nothing to do with this short film from Vitaphone (Warner Brothers).

The film involves two not particularly funny or talented guys who form a vaudeville-style routine. They get a booking at a theater and there is a funny(?) bit about them being called again and again and again to perform. Sadly, however, this isn't the least bit funny. The only positive I can think of is that unlike most Vitaphone shorts, this one has some plot.

While Vitaphone brought many stage acts to appear in their early sound shorts, it seems that the Reese Brothers (which were not brothers) were saved for the end--probably because they were not particularly good! Compared to other comics of the day, their antics are pretty dreadful and they weren't about to challenge Laurel & Hardy, Wheeler & Woolsey or even Boris Karloff in the comedy department!! I noticed one reviewer comment that Vaudeville is dead...and I think this duo really helped to kill it!

The Happy Hottentots was a pretty funny short despite the real-life atmosphere of the setting

[tavm · 7/10 · 30 November 2012]

This is another Vitaphone short from the early talkie era that is on The Jazz Singer DVD. It's about a couple of song-and-dance men (Joe Frisco and Bob Callahan) getting a vaudeville booking in between movies. Unfortunately, they're the only act as they have to keep going on whenever the stage manager (Billy Gilbert) calls them on stage despite not being dressed on time, or having a lunch break as they bring their sandwiches on stage, or just getting too tired to perform but don't worry, the audience is barely there with only the janitor in attendance! Oh, and there's an ending that brings the whole thing down that I won't reveal here. I found the whole thing pretty funny despite the sad real-life premise this came from. So on that note, I recommend The Happy Hottentots.

Frisco's Daring Performance

[plushing · 9/10 · 27 January 2008]

It's a daring performance; Joe plays a barely surviving vaudevillian who partners in a terrible act. The joke is the theater is so low that they seem to be the only performers on the bill, so they have to keep doing their crummy song and dance every few minutes. Of course they deteriorate, but here's the thing: Joe Frisco mixes good moves with bad, as if to give us our money's worth by playing a poor entertainer with great verve, sneaking in legitimate grace notes. So he's playing "Joe Frisco", well-regarded entertainer, playing Joe Blow at the bottom of the vaudeville ladder. Billy Gilbert steals all his (brief) scenes. They get a lot of comedic mileage out of repetitious walks.

No ham in the sandwich

[boblipton · 10/10 · 28 May 2002]

Hilarious! Joe and his partner are desperate to break into show business -- but no one can be this desperate! They find themselves out in the boondocks. "You open the show" "We don't open any shows." "All right, you close the show. " "I think we are the show!" With Billy Gilbert as the dyspeptic stage manager, it's a good thing the only audience is the janitor.

I tuned into this live-action short in hopes that it would provide the answer to . . .

[oscaralbert · 8/10 · 17 July 2019]

. . . that age-old question, "What makes the Hottentots so Hot?" Ever since "B. Lahr" raised this issue in the Wizard's reception hall near the center of Emerald City in 1939, EVERYBODY has been searching for the solution to this conundrum, in case it ever comes up on a "pop quiz." Teams of crack AI savants have repeatedly ransacked the many terabytes of Civilized thought generated by Mankind SINCE '39, but each such hunt has drawn a blank when it comes to pinning down the Hottentots. It was my belief that going back ANOTHER decade, when THE HAPPY HOTTENTOTS was produced, MIGHT shed some light upon this seminal subject. Alas, no such luck. However, it turns out that THE HAPPY HOTTENTOTS is one of the best documentaries ever recorded on the travails of the American Working Stiff. This should come as no surprise, as soon as one sees that THE HAPPY HOTTENTOTS are being trotted out by the always eponymous Warner Bros., whose prophetic prognosticators are rightly acclaimed for their uncanny ability to warn America of its upcoming Calamities, Cataclysms, Catastrophes, and Apocalypti. In this case, Warner Bros.' clairvoyant team deftly demonstrate how We True Blue Loyal Patriotic Normal Average 99 Per Center Progressive Union Label "Little People" will be coerced into low-paid, menial, unrewarding virtual slave labor with forced unpaid overtime, no breaks, vermin-infested "company" food, and fire-trap "company" housing IF we allow the demonic Pachyderm Party to sow discord among our Union Brotherhood through Fake News, Communist Infiltration, and bogus idiotic "Right to Work" statutes!

Early Talkie Without Any Laughs

[Michael_Elliott · 24 August 2011]

Happy Hottentots, The (1930)

** (out of 4)

Early musical-short has a couple singers (Joe Frisco, Bob Callahan) finally getting off the unemployment line when they land a job at a movie theater. What they don't realize is that they're the only act and must perform fifteen shows a day. This early Vitaphone film is going to appeal to only those who enjoy early talkies and you can find this thing on the bonus disc for Warner's THE JAZZ SINGER. The entire film is set up as a comedy because our two "heroes" just repeat the same tired joke over and over. They do a musical set, want to go rest but are forced to go back on for another number. They do the number and then go to rest only to be thrown back on the stage. This happens about six or seven different times and the only "different" thing we see is when the boys must get on the stage while still eating their ham sandwiches. Needless to say, there's very little here that's actually funny as the screenplay really doesn't deliver any laughs and having the same unfunny thing happen over and over really doesn't help. Both Frisco and Callahan are decent in their roles but one wishes the screenplay had been a little better.