Having just gotten a promotion at work, Edgar Kennedy comes home on a vacation and everybody in the family, especially his brother-in-law Jack Rice, thanks that he's been fired for being overweight. Wife Florence Lake's old boyfriend Dick Wessel shows up for a visit and proceeds to give Kennedy a workout to get him back in shape, and Kennedy begins to think that he's dying from drinking some kind of acid. When news of his promotion is revealed to the family, they push him to make sure he's it's ready for it even though he's certain that he's dying. When all is revealed, Kennedy prepares to seek revenge, with his brother-in-law as the main victim. Sometimes these shorts are very tiring because the family is so awful that their antics are disgusting to watch. Even when Kennedy gets revenge, it never seems like enough. I didn't find much to laugh at here even though I found I could root for Kennedy because of his success at work.
2 Reviews
Edgar Must Get Healthy If It Kills Him
boblipton20 October 2019
Edgar comes home early, a few days off before his raise and promotion. Mother-in-law Dot Farley and brother-in-law Jack Rice worry that he's let himself get fat, and the boss may fire him, and what will happen to them then, the selfish brute? So they incite him into exercising so heavily that he's crippled in this funny episode of Edgar's long-running 'The Common Man' series from RKO.
It's broadly constructed and relies less on Edgar Kennedy's comedy of frustration, his his patented 'slow burn' takes and outbursts of temper. Instead, we rely more on the uncaring and selfish attitudes of Miss Farley and Rice, of screen wife Florence Rice's amusing spoonerisms, and even visiting comic Dick Wessel's strong man bits. Any series that lasts a long time must vary in its bits lest it grow stale, and this is a nice variation on the series' usual bits.
It's broadly constructed and relies less on Edgar Kennedy's comedy of frustration, his his patented 'slow burn' takes and outbursts of temper. Instead, we rely more on the uncaring and selfish attitudes of Miss Farley and Rice, of screen wife Florence Rice's amusing spoonerisms, and even visiting comic Dick Wessel's strong man bits. Any series that lasts a long time must vary in its bits lest it grow stale, and this is a nice variation on the series' usual bits.
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