All Hail Edgar Kennedy: Master of the Slow Burn!

For more info on Edgar Kennedy and additional reviews of the book, please visit www.edgarkennedy.org!

I’m not quite sure why it’s taken so long for a full-length bio of Edgar Kennedy to hit the stands; he had a long and interesting career, and even casual fans of vintage films recognize the great comic actor and his famous “slow burn”. Thankfully, Sgt. Bill Cassara of the Monterey County Sheriffs Office (and founder of the local chapter of the Sons of the Desert, the Laurel & Hardy appreciation society) has corrected that oversight with a wonderful new book that fans of Kennedy will find hard to put down.

Edgar Livingston Kennedy (1890-1948) was born on a small farm in Monterey County, California. Following his father’s death in 1900, Edgar relocated north with his mother, first to San Francisco and then San Rafael, where as a teenager the boy discovered a love for dramatics (a picture of 15-year-old Edgar as a lion onstage in A Midsummer Night’s Dream hilariously anticipates his donning of a similar costume a quarter-century later in the Our Gang film Shivering Shakespeare). As he grew, he divided his time between boxing and touring theatricals, eventually finding that the stage was less painful than the ring. After making his film debut in Brown of Harvard (1911), he found steady employment at Mack Sennett’s Keystone lot, where the athletic young man found himself as a charter member of the group affectionately known as the Keystone Kops.

Kennedy stayed busy throughout the silent era, even directing a handful of shorts, and by the early sound era he was a regular at Hal Roach Studios, working with Laurel & Hardy, Our Gang, Charley Chase, Thelma Todd, Harry Langdon, and the Boy Friends. This led to a 1931 contract with RKO-Radio Pictures to release a program of two-reelers starring Kennedy called “The Average Man” series; the shorts proved popular and continued until his death in 1948, a streak of 103 films over 17 years (and beyond, because RKO continued to re-release the shorts theatrically until the mid-1950s). Kennedy also appeared in key supporting roles in numerous feature films, including such classics as Duck Soup (1933) with the Marx Bros. He was most famous, of course, for his “slow burn” routine, in which building anger would cause him to wipe his hand slowly across his face in frustration – describing it doesn’t do justice to how funny it is.

Cassara, who hosted an Edgar Kennedy Celebration in Monterey in 1997, had access to the Kennedy family’s scrapbooks and photo albums, and makes good use of them. Contemporary newspaper reports of Kennedy’s career (including reviews) are liberally sprinkled throughout the book, even though, as Cassara admits, often the newspaper stories are varnished semi-truths cooked up by publicity men. More interesting still are the reminisces of Edgar’s daughter Colleen, including the frequent trips she made with her father, the gala Christmas parties her home would host for her father’s many Hollywood friends, and his final illness (Edgar, an avid smoker, succumbed to throat cancer in November 1948). The book also contains an extensive 44-page filmography of Kennedy’s screen appearance, a guide that will come in handy for future reference.

Edgar Kennedy: Master of the Slow Burn (BearManor Media, $19.95) is a true labor of love by a great Kennedy fan and is a welcome addition to this cinema library.

Photo sent to In The Balcony by Sgt. Cassara; radio interview with Kennedy and his daughter Colleen, year unknown. Note that the microphone is marked WNJR (Newark, New Jersey).

The Average Man Series

For 17 years, Edgar Kennedy starred in a series of two-reel comedy shorts officially known as “The Average Man” series. A forerunner of the TV sitcom, the films usually revolved around situations featuring Edgar, his wife (dotty or shrewish, depending on the actress), and his permanent houseguests: an overbearing mother-in-law and her shifty, worthless son, Edgar’s brother-in-law. Throughout the course of each film, Edgar would get more and more angry and frustrated until finally his bald top would explode. It doesn’t sound like much to go on for 17 years, but the series actually stayed fresh and funny, and while there were clinkers from time to time, the series still holds up pretty well. (The opening music for each film in the series was “Chopsticks”.)

Florence Lake (sister of Arthur “Dagwood” Lake) was the first and best of the Kennedy screen wives; her good-natured but foolish persona was well set against Edgar’s blustering impatience. Dot Farley was her mother, and William Eugene (and later Jack Rice) was the worthless brother. The supporting cast evolved as the series progressed, and for awhile Bill Franey as the father-in-law replaced his wife and son as the main foil for Kennedy. Lake left the series in 1936 and was replaced by the matronly Vivien Oakland; by the early 1940s, Kennedy’s household had a revolving door for screen wives until Miss Lake returned for good in 1944.

As an example of the series, let’s take a look at a typical entry, Beaux and Errors (1938), directed by Charles Roberts.

One morning, Edgar’s wife (Vivien Oakland) is looking through some photo albums with her friend Eva, who is commenting on how handsome Edgar was as a youth. “He sure has changed,” she adds dryly. Coming across a picture of a very handsome man, Vivien explains that it’s Jimmy Dugan, an old boyfriend. “How is it that you didn’t marry HIM?” Eva asks. Vivien’s father pipes in, “I tried to tell her that Dugan was the man for her – she wouldn’t listen, and had to go for that big… oh, good morning, Edgar!”

Vivien casually mentions that Edgar has put on weight, lost more hair, dresses too casually, and has started to age ungracefully. She sighs, “I suppose every man when he grows older begins to lose pride in his personal appearance.”

Later, Father pulls the deflated Edgar aside, says that he recently ran into Jimmy Dugan, who had gotten fat and “looks like a tramp,” and suggests that Edgar call him and invite him over for the weekend to teach Vivien a lesson.

When Dugan shows up, though, he’s tall and handsome (Father had mistaken him for Jimmy Doolin, another old beau) and the remainder of the film is a showcase for Edgar getting more and more jealous and more and more angry, eventually becoming convinced that his wife and Jimmy plan to run off together. (In the funniest gag in the film, after Edgar sees Dugan for the first time, he goes off looking for his father, murder in his eyes, while he sweetly calls, “Oh, Papa! Oh, Papa!”)

Eventually, Dugan leaves (alone) and Vivien admits that she had been flirting with him to make Edgar jealous, because he’d forgotten that it was their wedding anniversary. Edgar sneaks upstairs, shaves, combs his hair (which doesn’t take long), and puts on his nicest suit. Edgar and Vivien, reconciled, are just sitting down to a happy anniversary dinner when Father shows up with Jimmy Doolin (who does indeed look like a tramp) – “I invited him over for the weekend!” Slow burn and fade out.

Once a frequent staple on TV, the “Average Man” shorts are not part of the RKO feature film package now owned by Warner Bros., so the shorts have become rare. In 2003, VCI Entertainment issued an Edgar Kennedy Collection DVD compilation (SRP $19.99) that features nine films from the series (including Beaux and Errors), mostly in good quality, and a bonus 1930 Pathé short starring Daphne Pollard with Edgar in a supporting role.

Edgar goes British

In early 1938, Edgar decided to take his wife and daughter on a European vacation, and asked his agent to find him a picture in England so that his expenses would be paid. A one-picture deal was struck with Gainsborough Studios in Islington to appear in the next Will Hay comedy, Chicago Ben. Hay was then at the peak of his popularity, and although he’s unknown in America, from the mid-1930s through the War years he was one of Britain’s most beloved screen comics. It’s a testament to the popularity of Edgar Kennedy that he was billed above the title with Hay when the film was released in the fall of 1938 as Hey! Hey! U.S.A!

The film’s opening gives us Hay as a dockside porter, loading trunks onto a liner bound for America. He drops a heavy suitcase on a passenger’s foot – and the camera pans up to give us the passenger, Edgar Kennedy, in the middle of a slow burn. Kennedy is working for a gangster who is trying to kidnap a young American boy traveling with his wealthy parents; Kennedy’s boss is so cheap, though, that Edgar is forced to stow away for the voyage in the ship’s hold. Meanwhile, some Scotland Yard men are looking for an escaped criminal, who is aboard the ship disguised as Professor Tavistock, esteemed educator. To avoid the detectives, the fake Tavistock knocks out Hay, deposits him in his stateroom, and escapes. Waking up at sea, Hay attempts to explain to the ship’s captain that it’s a mistake he’s on board, but when he sees how roughly the captain and his men treat the captured Kennedy, he decides to keep his mouth shut and play the part of the Professor. Kennedy escapes, and Hay helps to hide him so that Kennedy (who knows Hay’s really a porter) won’t reveal his identity, and yes, this film’s plot IS overly complicated. The easily flummoxed Hay and the equally easily exasperated Kennedy make a pretty good team, though, and there’s some good dialog (partially written by Val Guest). Kennedy tells Hay that if they’re caught, they’ll go to Ellis Island. “What’s that?” Hay wonders. “A prison under the Statue of Liberty” Kennedy replies.

The plot ends up even more complicated, as “Professor Tavistock” is hired to tutor the spoiled kid (Tommy Bupp) that Kennedy is trying to kidnap. Teacher and student end up arguing the relative worth of their two countries, and the kid smirks and points out that the U.S. defeated England in war. “That was only our second 11, playing away,” Hay responds.

When the gang manages to hoist the lad, Kennedy is sent to pick up the ransom money. The boy’s tutor is sent to deliver the money, though, and Edgar and Will meet in the park and sit down to a nice reunion while they each await their rendezvous, neither realizing the other man is it.

Eventually, Hay manages to locate the kid and help him escape, although the two of them are chased across the rooftops by a vengeful Edgar, who wants to slow-burn both of ’em.

Hey! Hey! U.S.A! is a notch below the best Hay films, but contains some good laughs. Some of those are unintentional: listen to the various Brits struggle to emulate American accents! There’s also an unfortunate scene at a Lincoln Day parade; Hay makes some comments about black folks that wouldn’t be heard in mainstream U.S. films of the era. But Edgar has brought along his old Hal Roach pal Charlie Hall for a cameo appearance, and the scene where Prof. Tavistock is being interviewed on the radio (or “over the wireless” if you prefer) is a comic delight, as the announcer twists every sentence Hay says into a commercial for “Sweetie Wheaties” breakfast cereal.

Hey! Hey! U.S.A! is available on DVD in England (region 2) as part of the Will Hay Collection boxed set (Granada Ventures, Ltd., £49.99).