Classic Movie Stars on THE MUPPET SHOW

Thanks to Disney Plus, viewers can finally enjoy all five seasons of The Muppet Show, and at my house we've been delighted to have access to the long-awaited fourth and fifth seasons, which were never available on DVD. The release has created some controversy about Disney's decision to include content warnings on a handful of episodes (which are, in some cases, painfully necessary), but for Muppet fans the more pressing questions often involve trying to figure out who the guest star is, since some of these folks might have been famous in the 1970s but are truly obscure now. Luckily for classic movie fans, the guest list also includes some fantastic stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood, and their appearances on the show offer a delightful snapshot of these stars as they appeared in the late 1970s. 

For many viewers who were kids in the 70s, these guest spots might well have been their first introduction to entertainers from their parents' or grandparents' eras, which means that Gen Xers in particular might have been meeting Milton Berle, Edgar Bergen, Danny Kaye, and Gene Kelly for the first time. Other stars were much more familiar to the average 10 year old of 1978, including Mark Hamill, Don Knotts, and Rich Little, while many of the British guests would have baffled American children and adults alike (the show was filmed in London, so British guests were much easier to acquire). Of course, today even the "current" stars of 1978 look like classic ones, but every season of the show mixed classic stars, current American celebrities, and British talents to provide a weirdly educational cultural smorgasbord for unsuspecting child viewers. Singers and dancers had obvious appeal, as did comedians, but that didn't stop the show from featuring action stars like James Coburn and Roger Moore or magician Doug Henning. The classic movie stars were just part of the mix.

Each season has at least one classic star, although some were better known in the 70s than others thanks to musical careers, television roles, or later film roles. In Season One, you can see Rita Moreno, Lena Horne, Peter Ustinov, Vincent Price, and Ethel Merman. Season Two offers Don Knotts, Milton Berle, Edgar Bergen, George Burns, Julie Andrews, Peter Sellers, and Bob Hope. Showing up in Season Three are Danny Kaye, Harry Belafonte, and Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Season Four is comparatively light on classic movie stars but includes Liza Minnelli, while Season Five ends the series with James Coburn, Tony Randall, and Gene Kelly. Each of these is worth watching, but the episodes with Moreno, Price, Andrews, and Belafonte are particularly good, so start there if you're a classic film fan but not someone with a lot of previous experience with The Muppet Show. 

A handful of the classic film stars who appear on the series also have cameos in the original 1979 film, The Muppet Movie, where you can spot Bob Hope, Milton Berle, and James Coburn along with Orson Welles, Telly Savalas, and many younger stars who also appeared as guests on the show. Many of the Muppet films are also streaming on Disney Plus, so if the classic stars on The Muppet Show whet your appetite for more of Kermit and the gang, there's plenty of content available. 

Want to know everything there is to know about The Muppets? Head on over to my friends at Tough Pigs to find news, articles, podcasts, and commentary! You can also check out the essay anthology, Kermit Culture, that Anissa Graham and I edited; it's available in paperback and Kindle editions at Amazon. Our second anthology, The Wider Worlds of Jim Henson, looks at films and other productions like The Dark Crystal, Fraggle Rock, and Labyrinth.

Classic Films in Focus: THE GHOST BREAKERS (1940)

The "old dark house" picture has been a staple of the horror and horror-comedy genres at least as far back as the silent classic, The Cat and the Canary (1927), long before the Scooby Gang made it the regular fare of children's entertainment. To this tradition you may add The Ghost Breakers (1940), a creepy comedy featuring all kinds of silly scares and a very young Bob Hope firing off one-liners like silver bullets. While some of the film's touchier aspects may lessen the modern viewer's enthusiasm for the movie, The Ghost Breakers has plenty of laughs and even some genuine thrills to warrant attention, and kids will probably enjoy its humorous take on the haunted house theme.

Bob Hope plays Larry Lawrence (aka Lawrence Lawrence Lawrence, because his parents "lacked creativity"), a radio celebrity whose news scoops involving the mob get him into hot water. When Larry goes to confront the gangsters, he accidentally gets mixed up in the affairs of Mary Carter (Paulette Goddard), who has just inherited a cursed Cuban castle. Larry and his sidekick Alex (Willie Best) accompany Mary to Cuba to investigate the property's ghoulish reputation; once there, they discover both corporeal and ghostly threats lurking in the castle's moonlit halls.

Hope and Paulette Goddard make a fine pair, and they share some very good scenes that combine romance and comedy in equal measure. No shrinking violet, Goddard's Mary is a plucky heroine, ready to engage Larry's silly humor or to venture alone into the haunted castle at night. She becomes especially lovely when she assumes the costume of a long dead ancestor; the stunning black dress, designed by Edith Head, is a real winner, and it suits the actress perfectly. Hope is remarkably handsome, although his distinctive features still suggest the fool more than the hero; his obvious jealousy when another man enters the picture engages our sympathy for fear he should lose the lovely Mary to a more conventional sort of leading man.

The only real hitch in the picture is Willie Best's appearance as Alex, Larry's manservant and companion. There are two ways to react to the performance: you can either decry it as another "Stepin Fetchit" stereotype or you can appreciate how much Best is able to do with it in spite of the attitudes of the day. Best was one of the best-known black character actors in the business, notable enough to recieve credit for small roles when most performers would not. His goggle-eyed reaction shots are typical of the era, and Best eventually lost the public's support as a new generation of African-Americans sought to distance themselves from such portrayals. Still, Alex is Larry's functional equal in the film; often more practical than Larry, and no more frightened by the specters than his white companions, Alex is more sidekick than servant, and Best certainly knows how to hold the screen against the charismatic Hope. If you watch the film with younger viewers, it's a good idea to talk about Best's character and how depictions of minorities have changed since the 1940s, but children are more likely to regard Alex as a full participant in the comedy than a mere stereotype, and that may be the wisest and most appreciative way to view Best's performance.

Look for Anthony Quinn playing a dual role as Cuban twin brothers, as well as Virginia Brissac rendered utterly unrecognizable under the heavy make-up of the zombie mother. If you like haunted house movies, be sure to catch The Old Dark House (1932) and House on Haunted Hill (1959). For more spooky comedy, try Topper (1937), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). Hope and Goddard also starred together in a 1939 remake of The Cat and the Canary. Bob Hope is best remembered today for his road movies with Bing Crosby, but he also stars in The Lemon Drop Kid (1951), Casanova's Big Night (1954), and The Seven Little Foys (1955). You can see more of Paulette Goddard in Modern Times (1936), The Women (1939), and The Great Dictator (1940). The Ghost Breakers, which began life as a stage play, was remade in 1953 by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis as Scared Stiff, with Lewis filling the role that Willie Best had plays in the 1940 version.

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.

Classic Films in Focus: CASANOVA'S BIG NIGHT (1954)

You'd think a star-studded costume comedy like Casanova's Big Night (1954) would have everything it needed to be a huge success, but it never quite comes together. Perhaps it's Bob Hope's awkward brand of humor that doesn't quite suit the material, or the embarrassment of seeing heavyweight character players like Basil Rathbone, Joan Fontaine, John Carradine, Lon Chaney, Jr., and even Vincent Price being largely thrown away on half-hearted gags. The real shame is that a cast like that ought to be enough to make any picture work, and there really are a couple of interesting moments scattered throughout the film, but overall it fails to live up to its evocation of the legendary lover and his romantic adventures.

Bob Hope plays Pippo, a nervous tailor who impersonates the real Casanova (Vincent Price) in order to woo an attractive widow (Joan Fontaine). When Casanova himself skips town to avoid his creditors, Pippo is coerced into playing his part in a complicated scheme involving a lovely young bride (Audrey Dalton) and the embroidered petticoat on which her family's honor depends. Casanova's valet (Basil Rathbone) joins the widow to help Pippo carry out the deception and obtain the petticoat, but Pippo begins to have second thoughts about his part in the plan when he gets to know the innocent young woman whose marriage will be ruined should he succeed.

Hope can be very funny, but his scenes in Casanova's Big Night mostly fall flat. His best moment might be his drag impersonation of a foreign dignitary, although he never really seems to have much enthusiasm for his role. Vincent Price disappears completely after the first few minutes, which is too bad because a comedy about Price's misadventures as the scoundrel Casanova might have been a lot more interesting. Basil Rathbone seems almost ashamed of himself for being in the picture, and his fencing talents are underutilized in a film that would have been perfectly suited to swashbuckling action. Of the lot, Joan Fontaine probably gets the best opportunity to work her material, and we see her dueling with swords, rowing gondolas, brandishing skillets, and disguising herself as a man in various entertaining scenes. Other notable stars, like John Carradine, Lon Chaney, Jr., and Raymond Burr turn up in small parts that don't particularly do them justice.

The breaking of the fourth wall at the end of the picture strikes me as contrived and overly cute, perhaps because Hope is so smarmy. Normally a little meta-humor is a welcome addition, but here it just feels like the movie painted itself into a corner and couldn't come up with a better way to end. Paramount rolled out the bells and whistles for this production, with splendid Technicolor costumes by Edith Head and plenty of showy set pieces, but these embellishments can't make up for the basic lethargy of the story and its protagonist.

If you like swashbuckling comedies, try The Court Jester (1955) instead. A comparison of the two pictures reveals everything that Casanova's Big Night could have done better but didn't. For a better Bob Hope comedy, see The Ghost Breakers (1940). Look for the other stars of this forgettable picture in many of Hollywood's most memorable movies, including The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Rebecca (1940), The Wolf Man (1941), and Laura (1944).