Fur, Fur Away Review: Loud, messy, and kind of wonderful vaudeville nonsense

Look, if you hate scratchy black-and-white shorts where people scream thier lines, just skip Fur, Fur Away right now. But if you have a soft spot for dusty vaudeville history, this is a total goldmine.

It's basically ten minutes of two guys yelling about coats. And honestly? I sort of loved it. 🧥

The Dr. Kronkhite Guys Do Furs

So, Joe Smith and Charles Dale were this huge comedy duo back in the day. You can tell they've done this routine a thousand times on stage before the cameras even started rolling.

The plot is paper thin, even thinner than Dodge Your Debts. They play furriers who are trying to sell some highly questionable pelts to customers who clearly don't want them.

The main joke seems to be that the furs are either falling apart or might still be alive. At one point, Dale shakes a coat and a cloud of dust explodes into the air so thick I sneezed just watching it.

Why it works (and why it doesn't)

The audio is pretty rough, like it was recorded inside a metal trash can. You have to strain to hear some of the puns, which are incredibly corny anyway.

“Is this mink?” “No, it's shmunk!” That is the level of comedy we are dealing with here, folks. 😅

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Fur, Fur Away (1931) through its definitive frames.

But there is this manic, desperate energy to it that you don't see in modern stuff. They are working so hard for every single chuckle.

Harry W. Conn wrote this, and you can feel his fingerprints all over the rapid-fire pacing. It feels less like a movie and more like a captured live performance where the actors are terrified the audience will throw tomatoes.

There’s this one bit where a customer tries on a coat that is obviously just a cheap bear rug thrown over his shoulders. The guy looks so incredibly miserable, and the camera just holds on his face for three seconds too long.

It’s those little moments of pure awkwardness that make these old shorts worth digging up. It has that same chaotic, cheap feel as East Lynne with Variations, where nobody seems entirely sure where the camera is.

I’m not saying it’s a masterpiece. Half the jokes land with a thud, and the ending just sort of... happens.

But as a time capsule? It’s pretty great.

If you have ten minutes to spare and want to see how your great-grandparents laughed, give it a search. Just don't expect anything fancy.