There's more than just a few coincidences arising from this Bert Lahr short that has more than just a few simililarities to "The Wizard of Oz", made five years later. There's nothing cowardly about Lahr in this to real short that has him as a carnival Shooting Gallery worker who longs to move to the west and the ends up in Poison Gulch and ends up being made sheriff. "Two shakes of a lamb's stew" is just one of many Lahr malopropisms that he utters sans cowardice as he encounters two bank robbers he had met back east. Of course, he's dumber than a witch flying under a tornado with a house in it, so the robbers get to take perfect advantage of him. Whether or not there are poppies in this gulch is never determined.
The forgotten Florence Auer (a Marjorie Main look-alike) is hysterical as his harpy wife, while that's actually veteran character actor Harry Davenport (not Charley Grapewin as listed here) in the uncredited role of the judge. Lahr's schtick kept him busy on stage, film and TV screens for decades, and he never altered from that formula. While much of the humor is dated, Lahr is much too beloved to ever disappoint, and the final shot involving a phone call with Auer in New York and him out west is downright hysterical.
The forgotten Florence Auer (a Marjorie Main look-alike) is hysterical as his harpy wife, while that's actually veteran character actor Harry Davenport (not Charley Grapewin as listed here) in the uncredited role of the judge. Lahr's schtick kept him busy on stage, film and TV screens for decades, and he never altered from that formula. While much of the humor is dated, Lahr is much too beloved to ever disappoint, and the final shot involving a phone call with Auer in New York and him out west is downright hysterical.