Carnival Nights

Technically, this is a comedy (happy ending, funny dialogue), but it's a pretty soggy one. Lee Tracy, the screen's peerless impersonator of fast-talking, wisecracking flim-flam men, is Chick, a carny showman whose wife dies in childbirth and whose anxieties about bringing up baby expose us to lots of lectures about bottles and thermometers. Jimmy Durante, whose talent is for demolishing order and breaking up the joint, assists Tracy in baby care, helping him put up a front of respectability for the baby-snatchers from the Children's Society. These harpies pursue Tracy with such assiduity over the years you would think his name was Chick Valjean.

Chick learns that a wife would make him genuinely respectable, but his worries prevent him seeing that sweet Sally Eilers, who is besotted with both him and his baby, is the one for him. The performers are all appealing, and the baby isn't too hard to take, but the script is pretty lame, and the whole enterprise feels damped down by the enforced pathos and the submission of the two comics' raucous personalities to these nice-guy parts.

Carnival puppeteer Lee Tracy's wife dies giving birth to his son. His father-in-law, Oscar Apfel, who threw his daughter out, wants the baby, but Tracy says no. When warrants are shown, Tracy grabs the baby. With the help of light-fingered piano-player Jimmy Durante and Tracy's assistant, Sally Eilers, they take it on the lam, hiding under false names in traveling shows. Eilers loves Tracy, but he never realizes it.

It's a pretty good carnival movie, directed by Walter Lang from a script by Robert Riskin. It shows the close-knit community of the carnival, with plenty of the characters you might see at a sideshow, including midgets, a half-man-half-woman, and giant John Aasen. It doesn't romanticize the culture; its members are well-meaning if not overly bright, and it's good to see Tracy in this period doing something than his patented, fasted-talking reporter.

The copy I saw was not very good. The image looked to be third or fourth generation, and the soundtrack was muffled, but what I saw indicated that it was a pretty good movie.

Chick Thompson (Lee Tracy) and his pal, Fingers (Jimmy Durante) worked for the circus but ran away with Chick's baby, Poochy(???). This is because Mrs. Thompson died in childbirth and her father is trying to take the child away from Chick. Eventually, Chick returns to the circus and has rebranded himself 'Doc Crawford'. But soon child welfare workers show up looking for the child....and Chick/Doc realizes that if he's married that perhaps these social workers will give up chasing him and the kid. But Chick is so completely clueless and somehow doesn't realize that Daisy (Sally Eilers) would be a perfect mother and that she in love with him. Eventually, she gets fed up with Chick's neglect and she leaves the circus. What's next for her, Chick and Poochy(?????)?

While "Carnival" is a decent film, it has one huge problem....no man is that stupid and clueless. How could Chick not realize Daisy is great marriage material? How could he not realize she's in love with him? And, how could she not recognize her motherly side when she takes care of the child so much of the time?? Having Chick he this dumb was a bit ridiculous. And, when smart people act THIS dumb, you realize the writing could have been a lot better.

In spite of all this, the film is enjoyable. It is surprising that Durante's comic talents weren't used more as Chick's sidekick...but it still is a nice little film.