Gold Bricks: Bert Lahr Being Extremely Bert Lahr

Is it worth your twenty minutes?

If you like old-school slapstick and seeing Bert Lahr do his classic panicked routine, sure. You’ll probably hate this if you have zero patience for 1930s dialogue that moves at the speed of a runaway train. It’s basically a snapshot of a different era where people talked like they were reading from a telegraph.

Watching Bert Lahr try to act like a normal college guy is hilarious because he can't stop being Bert Lahr. He’s all jittery energy, like he just drank ten pots of coffee before the cameras rolled. There’s this one moment where he’s trying to be romantic, but he ends up looking like he’s about to faint from sheer anxiety.

His roommate, Dick, is a total piece of work. He’s the kind of "friend" you’d definitely want to keep your wallet away from. The way he pivots from giving marriage advice to actively trying to sabotage the guy is almost impressive in its pettiness.

The Psychiatrist Angle

The whole bit with the girlfriend’s dad being a psychiatrist is bizarre. It’s supposed to be a high-stakes comedy hurdle, but it mostly just feels like the writers ran out of ideas for how to stop the wedding. It reminded me a bit of the frantic energy in Service with a Smile, though maybe a little less focused.

• Bert’s cheerleader outfit is an absolute tragedy of fashion.
• The pacing is so fast you’ll miss half the jokes if you blink.
• Why does every room in this movie have so many chairs?
• The ending is abrupt, like someone just cut the film reel with kitchen scissors.

Honestly, the movie feels a bit like a rough draft for a much better, longer film. It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s a weirdly charming relic. You can feel the studio trying to cram an entire romantic drama into a tiny window of time. It works, sort of.

It’s not as sharp as some of the other shorts from that era, but if you’re a fan of vintage chaos, give it a spin. Just don't expect it to change your life. 🎞️