Clark and McCullough: Inspired Madness on AllMovie

Broadway comedians Bobby Clark and Paul McCullough were as popular as the Marx Brothers during the 1920s and 1930s. While mustachioed straight man McCullough was essentially a fur-coated nonentity, Clark was hailed as a comic genius, a master of the instant adlib and zany nonsequitur. Certainly no one looked more like a comedian than Clark, who sported a pair of painted-on hornrimmed glasses and wore an impossibly wide-brimmed hat. From 1930 to 1936 (the year of McCullough's death), Clark and McCullough turned out an average of six 2-reel comedies per year for RKO Radio Pictures. While many were mediocre, a handful are as amusing today as they were six decades ago. Clark and McCullough: Inspired Madness contains three of their best short subjects: The Druggist's Dilemma (1933), Fits in a Fiddle (1933) and Alibi Bye-Bye (1935). The last-named film, wherein the pair portray "alibi photographers" in Atlantic City, is perhaps the funniest of the batch. One quibble: why not include the team's all-time best effort, 1934's Odor in the Court?