Two Weeks To Live (1943)

Two Weeks To Live
Starring: Lum and Abner
Director: Malcolm St. Clair
Writers: Roswell Rogers and Michael L. Simmons
Genre: Comedy
Year: 1943
My rating: 

I had no idea who Lum and Abner were before I bought this DVD, so I did a little Internet research before I watched this moving picture. (Yes, I do research for these reviews. Stop laughing). Lum and Abner got their start in radio, starring in a serial comedy simply titled "Lum and Abner", each episode running 15 minutes. The series lasted thirteen weeks a year starting in 1932 and finishing in 1954 with minor changes to the format in that time. In 1940, they began supplementing their radio entertainments with feature length movies using the same characters and fictional setting.

Their celebrity doesn't seem to have lasted into the modern age as memorably as Laurel and Hardy, or Abbott and Costello, but they were extremely popular in their day. The series was set in the fictional town of Pine Ridge, Arkansas, which based itself and its inhabitants on the real town and colorful characters of Waters, Arkansas. According to the Wikipedia, the popularity of this radio series led to a name change. The town of Waters, Arkansas became Pine Ridge, Arkansas, the name of the fictional locale it had inspired.

Based only on viewing this movie, I can see how their comedy may not have aged as well as others of this time. The jokes seemed a little lame to this modern viewer. The punchlines are obvious about half a beat before the characters even begin reciting them. They don't even have the extreme groan-inducing corniness power of a Wheeler and Woolsey film. That said, I did enjoy this movie, though I doubt I will ever feel the need to watch it again. 

Introductions aside, here's how the movie proceeds. Lum and Abner are two elderly hillbillies living in the middle of nowhere in rural Arkansas. A letter slowly makes its way to Abner and informs him that he has inherited a railroad company from his deceased Uncle Ernie. Abner names himself the railway's chief conductor and Lum talks himself into becoming the company's president.

Lum, as president, decides that the railroad needs to have a stop in Pine Ridge, so they sell shares in the company to the townsfolk and use the money to buy all the land needed to divert the rail. However, once they arrive in Chicago and see the railroad for themselves, they realize that there has been a serious misunderstanding (a staple of all these type of films). They've completely wasted the townsfolk's money, and will need to find some way of raising money to pay back their neighbors.

Later, at the lawyer's office building Abner falls down a flight of stairs. He's taken to a doctor's office, but due to a mix up, he mistakenly believes that he has only two weeks to live (you saw that coming from the title, didn't you?). Given Abner's condition and their own desperate situation (and egged on by a friendly, Shakespeare-quoting window-washer), Lum decides that Abner should sell himself out as a daredevil, figuring that even if Abner kills himself in some crazy stunt, he's only going to miss out on two weeks anyway.

I found the first portion of the film a bit slow going and relatively dull. It's not actively bad, it's just not especially funny or entertaining. The action only really picks up after Abner's misdiagnosis and the subsequent stunts he finds himself performing. This is where the film breaks out of tired "dumb hillbillies in the city" clichés and becomes relatively original.

Among the various stunts that Abner is forced to perform are: painting a flagpole on the top of a skyscraper, staying the night in a haunted house, drinking a mad scientist's potion, and piloting the first rocketship to Mars. These gags aren't laugh-out-loud funny, but they are somewhat amusing, especially in their implementation. For goofiness, I'd put this movie about midway between a Three Stooges film and a Cary Grant comedy -- not exactly a fully zany, off-the-wall experience, but a little more wacky that a straight comedy. I found them to be falling between two stools, but I could see how someone else would enjoy this somewhat gentle sense of humor.

I viewed the Digiview Productions release of this movie. The picture and sound quality are adequate; it's certainly watchable. Given that these comedians are virtually unknown today, I suppose it's only down to luck that a halfway decent print even exists.

I could imagine other period comedy teams taking this simple premise and making a better film from it. The Marx Brothers, for example, would probably create something delightfully perverse (I'm picturing Harpo as the poor schmuck leaping from planes, scaling the sides of buildings and attempting to reach escape velocity). I did enjoy Lum and Abner's take on this, even though I doubt I'll ever feel the need to pop this DVD into the player ever again.