I Scream: A Weird, Loud Mess That Somehow Works

Is it worth the 20 minutes?

If you have a soft spot for the 1930s Vitaphone shorts or you just want to see Shemp Howard before he was doing the Three Stooges full-time, yeah, give it a look. People who hate loud, clattering slapstick will probably want to throw their laptop out a window after five minutes.

Lionel Stander is the lead here and his voice is just... unreal. He sounds like someone who has been eating sandpaper for breakfast every day since he was five.

He plays this ice cream delivery guy who is way too intense about his job. He gets hired by an insurance firm because they think he’s some tough guy who can handle a gang war that is basically bankrupting them.

There is a scene where he’s in the office and the pacing is so fast I actually had to rewind it because I missed the joke. Not that the joke was deep or anything, just that everyone talks at the same time. 🗣️

The whole gang war plot is mostly just an excuse for people to fall over. It reminds me a bit of the energy in The Lost Whirl, though maybe not quite as surreal as that one.

Then there are The Five Harmonica Rascals. They just show up and start playing.

The movie doesn't really explain why they are there. They just are. It feels like the director had ten minutes of extra film and a bunch of guys with harmonicas standing in the hallway, so he just shoved them in front of the camera. 🎶

A few things I noticed:

• The way Lionel Stander wears his hat is honestly impressive; it never seems to fall off during the chaos.
• Shemp Howard has this one reaction shot where he looks genuinely confused, and I don't think it was acting.
• The sound of the ice cream bell is way too loud in the mix.
• The insurance office looks like it was built in about twenty minutes.

It’s not exactly a masterpiece of cinema. It’s more like a chaotic time capsule of what people thought was funny right before the world got really dark in the late 30s.

I liked it more than Camping Out, mostly because of the grit Stander brings to it. He’s not a typical leading man. He’s weirdly aggressive for a comedy lead.

The ending is very abrupt. Like, the movie just decides it’s done and stops. I kind of respect that.

It doesn't try to have a message. It doesn't try to be clever. It just wants you to look at the guy with the gravel voice and the people playing harmonicas until the screen goes black.

Anyway, if you're bored and want to see Shemp looking young and skinny, it's a fine way to kill a lunch break.