Charley's Aunt (1941)

Film: Charley's Aunt (1941)

Stars: Jack Benny, Kay Francis, James Ellison, Anne Baxter, Edmund Gwenn, Laird Cregar, Richard Haydn

Director: Archie Mayo

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Jack Benny click here to learn more about Mr. Benny (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Well, I basically just skipped last week not only on the blog, but also in our Saturday article (I feel like we can all be forgiven for being distracted this past week).  This kind of works out for Jack Benny, though, because we get to look at twin sides of Benny's late film career as we close our month with him.  Much of the movies that Benny did were in the 1940's, when he was a big radio star but wanted to make it as a legitimate actor.  Last week we talked about both To Be or Not To Be and George Washington Slept Here, both films that are generally considered to be critical successes.  Today we're going to talk about two films, the first of which was a big deal, and arguably the closest that Benny came (save for To Be or Not To Be) to actually acting, and not just playing himself.  Later today (hey, it's still Saturday!), we're going to talk about the end of Benny's career, and the film that would become a running punchline for the rest of his career because the actor so despised it (and its failure).

(Spoilers Ahead) Charley's Aunt is based on a play by Brandon Thomas that was told a few times in the early days of cinema.  It's about three friends: Jack (Ellison), Babbs (Benny), and Charley (Haydn).  Jack & Charley are desperately in love with two girls Amy (Baxter) and Kitty (Whelan), but assume that without money they can't convince the girls and their guardian Mr. Spettigue (Gwenn) to allow them to marry.  When Jack finds out he's broke and Charley's wealthy aunt doesn't show up, they put Babbs in a dress and make him pretend to be Charley's aunt, hoping that she'll convince the girls to marry them.  Things fall apart, though, when Mr. Spettigue falls madly in love with Babbs in drag...and when the real aunt (Francis) shows up...and falls in love with Babbs.

This sounds like it should work as a comedy, so I get why this was a popular story, but I wasn't a fan of it.  The supporting cast, despite boasting film veterans Baxter, Gwenn, & Francis, are all a bit dull and don't do much with the material, and the rest of the supporting cast can't hold up.  It doesn't help that Ellison & Haydn are so boring as to be interchangeable (as, to be fair, are Baxter & Whelan) or that the jokes all feel dated even in 1941-how many times can you go to the same "man in a dress" well and expect that alone to be a joke, Classical Hollywood?

I have to say, for the first time, that Benny also doesn't work for me here.  This is the closest he's come to playing another person; while there's definitely scenes where he's going after the Benny schtick that he'd become famous for, he largely is playing Babbs as a real person...but he's not a strong enough chameleon to pull it off.  This happened quite a bit with comedians of Benny's era-Cary Grant was marvelous at playing Cary Grant...which is why he rarely played anything else.  Benny in a different motif didn't work.  His jokes didn't land as sharply as they should have, and the film itself feels stale & lifeless & overlong.