Edgar Kennedy - Rediscovered Comedies of Edgar Kennedy, Volume 4

Edgar Kennedy (1890-1948) was one of the greatest comic actors of Hollywood's Golden Age. The stout Kennedy started out as a boxer, even once going 11 rounds with heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey. Looking for a safer profession, he broke into Hollywood with bit parts in silent comedies, including a stint as one of the original Keystone Kops. He soon came into his own at Hal Roach Studios, working both as actor and director. The Marx Brothers also appreciated his talents, giving him a memorable role as a street vendor in Duck Soup (1933). But it was at RKO that Kennedy had his longest sustained success, starring in six short subjects a year for the venerable studio between 1931 and 1948. In these he played an eternally flummoxed "average man" with a scatterbrained wife (Florence Lake), an overbearing mother-in-law (Dot Farley), and a good-for-nothing brother-n-law (either William Eugene or Jack Rice). This was where Kennedy perfected his signature move, "the slow burn", in which he rubbed his hand across his face and bald head in a futile attempt to control his temper. These entertaining shorts, which numbered over a hundred by the time of Kennedy's death from throat cancer in 1948, served as the template for innumerable sitcoms in the television era.

• In-Laws Are Out (1934)
• Poisoned Ivory (1934)
• Edgar Hamlet (1935)
• The Hillbilly Goat (1937)
• Bad Housekeeping (1937)
• A Clean Sweep (1938)
• Mutiny in the Court (1940)
• Inferior Decorator (1942)
• The Big Beef (1945)
• Social Terrors (1946)

• comedy