OVERLOOKED FILM: THE GORILLA (1939)

The Ritz Brothers -- Al, Jimmy, and Harry -- were the poor man's Marx Brothers, although Minnie's boys each played distinctly different characters while the Ritz Brothers were basically interchangeable, making it difficult for audiences to tell them apart.  They began on stage, emphasizing dance routines and slowly adding comedy bits to their ac; by the 1930s they were headliners.  In 1934, they began a series of two-reel comedies.  the first, Hotel Anchovy, was successful enough that 20th Century Fox voided their contract and hired them as a specialty act for musicals, including Sing, Baby, Sing and On the Avenue.  In 1937, they got their own film series, beginning with Life Begins in College.

Darryl Zanuck, the head at Fox, felt that the true star of the trio was Harry and kept trying to get Harry to drop his two brothers.  Zanuck bought an old stage play, The Gorlla, and had the trio star in the film adaptation.  The brothers complained about the poor quality of the script -- things were also complicated with the death of the trio's father, which delayed shooting, much to Zanuck's displeasure --and staged a walkout.  Zanuck responded by completing the film anyway, cancelling the brothers' serial contract, and moving them to a Jane Withers B pictures, and finally arranging them to appear in films for Poverty Row production company Republic Pictures.    The Ritz Brothers refused the deal and left Fox for good in 1939.  Over the next few years, they completed four full-length pictures, then concentrated on their nightclub act and various stage appearance.

Al died of a sudden heart attack at the end of 1965.  Harry and Jimmy went on to make two pictures in the mid-seventies.  In 1976, Harry appeared in Silent Movie.  Jimmy died in 1985.  By then Harry had Alzheimer's; he was never told of Jimmy death.  Harry died five months later.

The Ritz Brothers influenced many of the Twentieth Century's best-known comedians, at first through their films and later through their many nightclub and television appearances.  Norman Lear once said, "Harry Ritz was as funny as any human being, in or out of comedy, that I have ever [met]he was a jewel in a glorious setting, and his brothers were the setting."

And what about The Gorilla, the film that led to their breakup with Fox?

Wealthy Walter Stevens (Lionel Atwood) is threatened by a killer known as The Gorlla. He hires a hapless trio -- Garrity (Jimmy Ritz), Harrigan (Harry Ritz), and Mulligan (Al Ritz) --to investigate.  A real escaped gorilla (Art Miles) shows up at the house.  Also in the cast was Patsy Kelly as Kitty the maid (my wife always insisted that anyone named Kitty in films was either the maid or the hooker with a heart of gold) who is very frightened by Peters the butler (Bela Lugosi -- the original role had been meant for Peter Lorre)

Critics were not amused.  One wrote that the Ritz Brothers could be "perhaps best appreciated by those who find the antics of The Three Stooges to be of too high an order of wit."  Ouch!

Directed by Allan Dwan (David Harum, Heidi, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm).  The script was by Rian James (42nd Street, The Witness Chair, Broadway Limited) and Sid Silvers (Born to Dance, Broadway Melody of 1936, and some comedy material in The Wizard of Oz).  The original stage play of The Gorlla was written in 1925 by Ralph Spence; it had previously been filmed as a silent film in 1927.

I won't say "enjoy"  Rather, let me just say "experience."

Gorilla, The : Harry Joe Brown : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive