travsd

The Boyfriends

Twitter has declared it National Boyfriends Day, and so this post on a minor series of comedy shorts from the early ’30s. The Boyfriends was a talkie comedy series produced by Hal Roach between 1930 and 1932 as a kind of spinoff of the Our Gang series. It was conceived of by George Stevens as a replacement for Harry Langdon’s shorts for Roach, which had fared terribly.

The Boyfriends featured former Our Gang stars Mickey Daniels and Mary Kornman, along with Grady Sutton, Dorothy Granger, David Sharpe (fated to become a top Hollywood stuntman), Gertrude Messinger, and others playing lovable teenagers in small town America. A few of the shorts were set at Elmira College, Roach’s alma mater.

The series was not a hit at the box office, performing less well than all of Roach’s other series: Our Gang, Laurel and Hardy, Charley Chase, and the all-female team team of Zasu Pitts and Thelma Todd. Roach pulled the plug on the series, replacing them with the “Taxi Boys” (Ben Blue and Billy Gilbert), although several of the Boyfriends’ principal players late co-starred in the independent features Adventurous Knights (1934), and Roaring Roads (1935). Cast members Sharpe and Messinger were briefly married.

As there were only 15 Boyfriends films made in the series during its three year run, it has grown more obscure than Our Gang or Dead End Kids/Bowery Boys. Bust rest assured hardcore classic comedy fans keep their eyes peeled for screenings!

For more on silent and slapstick comedy, including the comedies of Hal Roach please see my book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube

Published by travsd

Writer and performer Trav S.D. (www.travsd.com) is best known for his books "No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous" (2005) and "Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube" (2013). He has written for the NY Times, the Village Voice, American Theatre, Time Out NY, Reason, the Villager and numerous other publications. Trav has been in the vanguard of New York’s vaudeville and burlesque scenes since 1995 when he launched his company Mountebanks, presenting hundreds of acts ranging from Todd Robbins to Dirty Martini to Tammy Faye Starlite to the Flying Karamazov Brothers. He has directed his own plays, revues and solo pieces at such venues as Joe’s Pub, La Mama, HERE, Dixon Place, Theater for the New City, the Ohio Theatre, the Brick, and 6 separate shows in the NY International Fringe Festival. In 2014 he produced and directed the smash-hit "I’ll Say She Is", the first ever revival of the Marx Brothers hit 1924 Broadway show in the NY International Fringe Festival.