Daredevil O'Dare: A chaotic little relic

Is it worth your time?

If you have a soft spot for the kind of frantic, basement-level comedy that feels like it was put together on a lunch break, sure. It’s definitely not for anyone who needs a coherent narrative or characters with actual goals. If you get impatient with black-and-white shorts that move like a caffeinated squirrel, steer clear.

There is this moment about halfway through where the pacing just falls off a cliff. It stops being a movie and starts being a series of noises and people running into walls. I’m not saying that’s bad, exactly, but it is a choice.

The whole thing has this weirdly desperate vibe. Like the production was constantly running out of film and just decided to film whatever was happening in the room at that exact second. It’s not quite as polished as The Patsy, but it shares that same frantic DNA.

Some notes from the couch:

• Shemp Howard is doing that thing where he looks like he’s terrified of his own shadow. It works for him, I guess.
• The lighting in the second scene is so flat it looks like they forgot to turn on half the lamps. 💡
• I’m pretty sure I saw someone trip over a prop that wasn't even meant to be there. They just kept going.
• It reminds me a bit of the aimless energy in One More Chance, just louder.

There is no attempt at a grand message here. It is just people being loud and falling down. Honestly, it’s refreshing to watch something that isn’t trying to teach me a lesson about the human spirit or whatever. It’s just goofiness for the sake of it.

The dialogue is mostly just shouting. You don't really need to listen to the words because the tone tells you everything. Milton Frome shows up and for about thirty seconds, the movie almost feels like it has a plan. Then he leaves and we're back to the chaos. 🤪

It’s a strange little artifact. If you're looking for cinema history, keep looking. If you want to see someone get hit with a prop for the fifteenth time in ten minutes, you found your movie.