I saw this early U.S. (Paramount) sound short in 1990, at a meeting of a film society in s'Gravenhage: most of the film society's members were from Holland or the Low Countries. One Benelux gentleman had a print of this film with the original American soundtrack, but with extremely obtrusive subtitles (in French) dominating the lower half of the screen and blotting out much of the image. The subtitles were actually so distracting that, after a minute or so, I put a business card in front of my face to block out the lower part of the screen! Fortunately, most of the humour in 'If Men Played Cards As Women Do' comes from the dialogue and its delivery, rather than anything actually happening on the screen, so I still got a fair notion of the actors' performances.
Unfortunately, this same print also had the front and end credits (and their original leaders) cut off; the end credits (if there ever were any) had been replaced with a newer piece of leader stock. More annoyingly, the opening credits were entirely gone and replaced with a leader strip which simply gave this film's title translated into French. No cast list, no production credits, nowt. Was there ever a cast list in the first place? (IMDb don't list one.) Watching this 1929 film, I had a deja-viewish feeling that I ought to recognise a couple of the American actors, but so far no pennies have dropped. The four men in this film address each other by forenames, but these are clearly the names of their roles. The sound recording was bad (no surprise for 1929 Paramount), and the print I viewed (an acetate dupe) was dark, so the actors' voices and faces were unrecognisable to me. For what it's worth, I suspect that this short movie was filmed at Paramount's east-coast studio in Astoria, NY, rather than in Hollywood.
The 1942 flag-waving musical 'Star Spangled Rhythm' (also from Paramount) contains a sketch with the same title as this short movie: in that version, Ray Milland, Fred MacMurray, Franchot Tone and (male) character actor Lynne Overman play themselves performing this material as a skit. Apart from the casting, the two versions have two major differences: the actors in this 1929 short have much better timing and delivery than those old pros in the '42 version, and the 1929 version has a radically different ending. For both of these reasons, the 1929 version is funnier. (I enjoyed 'Star-Spangled Rhythm' for several reasons, but not for this particular sketch ... the most protracted and least funny longueur in the entire film.)
From here onward, my review refers to the '29 version. A tired businessman (that's how he's dressed, at least) invites three of his mates over for a game of cards. But instead of a straightforward card game, they indulge in all the various diversions and distractions that are more typical of women's cardplaying. The joke -- and it's a VERY funny joke, when performed properly (as it is in the '29 version, unlike the '42 version) -- is that the men look, act and speak like regular blokes: they are not in any way effeminate. The title is accurate: this is not what life would be like if men acted like women, but rather if men played CARDS like women.
During their cardplay, one man admires another man's hat -- a perfectly normal trilby -- so the man wearing it offers to let the admirer try it on; the latter eagerly accepts. One man can't remember the difference between spades and clubs, so he shows his hand to the man next to him (an opponent), who plays fair by showing HIS hand to point out which suit is which. All four men chatter away about trivialities completely unrelated to the game, and also unrelated to any of the important subjects men actually talk about during card games (in descending order of importance): Politics, Business, Sex and Sport.
SPOILER NOW. The 1942 version of this skit ended with a mouse entering the room, prompting all four men to jump onto the table and lift their trouser turn-ups. I found that gag stupid and contrived ... especially since I've seen plenty of real-life WOMEN reacting to mice and other vermin, and not one of them ever did the "eek-a-mouse" routine that Fred MacMurray did in 'Star-Spangled Rhythm'. This 1929 short, conversely, ends with one of the cardplayers gossiping that another (male) friend absent from the game is 'expecting' a baby ... presumably with the aid of his wife. When the cardplayers realise that the expectant friend has only recently got married, they all gleefully throw down their cards and start counting the months ... calculating whether the friend will have been married for a full nine months before the baby arrives.
Hoo boy. I found this ending more plausible than the one in 'Star-Spangled Rhythm', not to say funnier, but it's very much an anticlimax compared to the very effective underplaying of the actors in the rest of this skit. The film's direction (by Joseph Santley, according to IMDb) is brisk and efficient: I certainly wish I could verify Santley's participation from this film's opening credits, but the French print didn't have any.
'If Men Played Cards As Women Do' ranks as one of those notions for which the basic idea is funnier than the execution. This material wants a really good punchline, and neither of these two film versions supplies it. Maybe I'm being ungenerous because I only saw the upper half of this movie, trying to block out those annoying subtitles in the lower half. My rating for this 1929 short: 6 out of 10.
Unfortunately, this same print also had the front and end credits (and their original leaders) cut off; the end credits (if there ever were any) had been replaced with a newer piece of leader stock. More annoyingly, the opening credits were entirely gone and replaced with a leader strip which simply gave this film's title translated into French. No cast list, no production credits, nowt. Was there ever a cast list in the first place? (IMDb don't list one.) Watching this 1929 film, I had a deja-viewish feeling that I ought to recognise a couple of the American actors, but so far no pennies have dropped. The four men in this film address each other by forenames, but these are clearly the names of their roles. The sound recording was bad (no surprise for 1929 Paramount), and the print I viewed (an acetate dupe) was dark, so the actors' voices and faces were unrecognisable to me. For what it's worth, I suspect that this short movie was filmed at Paramount's east-coast studio in Astoria, NY, rather than in Hollywood.
The 1942 flag-waving musical 'Star Spangled Rhythm' (also from Paramount) contains a sketch with the same title as this short movie: in that version, Ray Milland, Fred MacMurray, Franchot Tone and (male) character actor Lynne Overman play themselves performing this material as a skit. Apart from the casting, the two versions have two major differences: the actors in this 1929 short have much better timing and delivery than those old pros in the '42 version, and the 1929 version has a radically different ending. For both of these reasons, the 1929 version is funnier. (I enjoyed 'Star-Spangled Rhythm' for several reasons, but not for this particular sketch ... the most protracted and least funny longueur in the entire film.)
From here onward, my review refers to the '29 version. A tired businessman (that's how he's dressed, at least) invites three of his mates over for a game of cards. But instead of a straightforward card game, they indulge in all the various diversions and distractions that are more typical of women's cardplaying. The joke -- and it's a VERY funny joke, when performed properly (as it is in the '29 version, unlike the '42 version) -- is that the men look, act and speak like regular blokes: they are not in any way effeminate. The title is accurate: this is not what life would be like if men acted like women, but rather if men played CARDS like women.
During their cardplay, one man admires another man's hat -- a perfectly normal trilby -- so the man wearing it offers to let the admirer try it on; the latter eagerly accepts. One man can't remember the difference between spades and clubs, so he shows his hand to the man next to him (an opponent), who plays fair by showing HIS hand to point out which suit is which. All four men chatter away about trivialities completely unrelated to the game, and also unrelated to any of the important subjects men actually talk about during card games (in descending order of importance): Politics, Business, Sex and Sport.
SPOILER NOW. The 1942 version of this skit ended with a mouse entering the room, prompting all four men to jump onto the table and lift their trouser turn-ups. I found that gag stupid and contrived ... especially since I've seen plenty of real-life WOMEN reacting to mice and other vermin, and not one of them ever did the "eek-a-mouse" routine that Fred MacMurray did in 'Star-Spangled Rhythm'. This 1929 short, conversely, ends with one of the cardplayers gossiping that another (male) friend absent from the game is 'expecting' a baby ... presumably with the aid of his wife. When the cardplayers realise that the expectant friend has only recently got married, they all gleefully throw down their cards and start counting the months ... calculating whether the friend will have been married for a full nine months before the baby arrives.
Hoo boy. I found this ending more plausible than the one in 'Star-Spangled Rhythm', not to say funnier, but it's very much an anticlimax compared to the very effective underplaying of the actors in the rest of this skit. The film's direction (by Joseph Santley, according to IMDb) is brisk and efficient: I certainly wish I could verify Santley's participation from this film's opening credits, but the French print didn't have any.
'If Men Played Cards As Women Do' ranks as one of those notions for which the basic idea is funnier than the execution. This material wants a really good punchline, and neither of these two film versions supplies it. Maybe I'm being ungenerous because I only saw the upper half of this movie, trying to block out those annoying subtitles in the lower half. My rating for this 1929 short: 6 out of 10.
