Bring 'Em Back Sober: Slapstick, Lions, and Total Bedlam

Is this worth your time?

If you're in the mood for pure, unfiltered chaos from the silent era, absolutely. If you need a script that follows a logical progression, you’re going to be frustrated by the first ten minutes. It’s for the folks who get a kick out of watching people trip over their own feet for twenty minutes straight. 🦁

There's a strange, disjointed rhythm to Bring 'Em Back Sober that makes it feel less like a movie and more like a collection of ideas that nobody bothered to organize. It reminds me a bit of the frantic energy in The Queen of Hearts, though with significantly more animal encounters.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Bring 'Em Back Sober (1932) through its definitive frames.

The Lion in the Room

The star of the show is clearly Jackie the Lion. You can tell the poor animal just wants to go home. There’s this one shot where he’s just sitting there, looking directly into the lens, probably wondering why he didn’t just stay in the jungle. It’s honestly the most honest performance in the whole picture.

The human actors are all doing that wide-eyed, frantic gesturing that was mandatory back then. Ted Stroback is running around like his pants are on fire for the entire duration. I’m not entirely sure what the goal was, and I’m pretty sure the writers didn't care either.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Bring 'Em Back Sober (1932) through its definitive frames.

• The editing feels like it was done with a pair of rusty garden shears.
• Every time someone walks through a door, they fall down. Every time.
• The prop budget must have been three dollars and a half-eaten sandwich.

It’s not as polished as The Lone Hand, but there’s a weird charm to how messy it is. It feels like a rough draft that someone decided to print anyway. Sometimes a movie just needs to be a mess to be fun, right? 🤷‍♂️

The way they handle the pacing is… well, there isn't any. It’s just flat-out sprinting from one physical gag to the next. By the time you reach the finale, you’re exhausted, which I assume is exactly what they wanted. It’s not profound. It’s barely a story. But you’ll probably remember that lion.