A patriotic but short American man tries without luck to qualify for the Army, but can't get in until a knock on the head raises a lump high enough for him to pass the height requirement. Meanwhile, his lady friend decides to become a Secret Service agent, though she is unable to keep the fact a secret, even from the German spies she hopes to apprehend.
John Emerson, Anita Loos
United States
The first time I watched Come on In I half-expected the celluloid to sprout tiny bayonets and salute me. Joseph Burke’s pint-sized patriot doesn’t merely want to serve; he wants to be devoured by the machinery of war, ground into hero-pulp, reconstituted as a recruitment poster. The film’s gag—an inch-tall lump earn...
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Comparing the cinematic DNA and archive impact of two defining moments in cult history.
John Emerson
John Emerson
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" The first time I watched Come on In I half-expected the celluloid to sprout tiny bayonets and salute me. Joseph Burke’s pint-sized patriot doesn’t merely want to serve; he wants to be devoured by the machinery of war, ground into hero-pulp, reconstituted as a recruitment poster. The film’s gag—an inch-tall lump earned via slapstick cranial trauma—feels like a prank the universe plays on nationalism itself. Every frame vibrates with the same sarcastic tremor Anita Loos threaded through her fla..."
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