Meet the Baron (1933)

A trio of lost jungle explorers is separated when one takes off with the last remaining drinkable water leaving the other two to die.

The ones left behind are rescued only by passing themselves off as the famous Baron Munchausen and his agent. Received with much acclaim in America they are soon asked to give talks on broadcast radio and a (famous?) girl college.

Eventually, the real baron figures out the two knuckleheads survived and goes to America to clear his name.

As popular as some characters might have been at the time, not all are remembered in the present day, and one can clearly see why.

Was The Famous Baron Munchausen of the Air actually something at one point? This attempt to team up Jimmy Durante with another comic failed to generate a lasting franchise. Durante later did fine on his own, but who remembers Jack Pearl today?

Still remembered today are the Three Stooges, ((Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard, here as Jerry Howard); but even Ted Healy isn’t as remembered (or even well-remembered), except by Three Stooges cognoscenti. One can see why. The team is much better balanced as the classic trio they would become than as the foursome they began.

The plot isn’t anything special and, for example, might have been the skeleton in which The Marx Brothers and their writers built a vehicle around.

The script, which follows the jungle sequence with an extended rhyming/musical sequence, instead features a never-ending stream of corny jokes and malapropisms (which must have already been corny then, I’m sure, clearly that was their main appeal,) spouted by ill-defined characters (the baron is an inveterate liar, and his agent is his conniving partner? Both are simply ignorant enough that they could never fool a knowledgeable character, (the radio interviewer, for example,) and yet, still do.

Clearly aware of the weaknesses of the script, nearly equal comedic time is shared with the Three Stooges so that they may do their thing.

With the one (required) surreal Statue of Liberty gag.

Pretty tame for a Pre-Code film other than a musical sequence with attractive girls (The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Girls) stripping to their undies and showering, with only spraying water to cover their supposed nudity. Creative editing is also utilized for same. More naughtiness is implied when the water shuts down and a foursome of plumbers are called in.

With Henry Kolker, ZaSu Pitts and Edna May Oliver.

Strictly for the curious but, at little more than an hour, not really that painful.