YOO-HOO – -WITH HAL ROACH ALL-STARS! UNIVERSAL – 1932.

I recently came across an old 16mm print of YOO-HOO – a Universal 2 reel comedy from 1932 starring James Gleason. Besides Gleason, everyone else connected with the production seems to be from the Hal Roach Studios. The cast includes Bobby “Wheezer” Hutchins, Anita Garvin, Billy Gilbert, Fred Kelsey and Frank Austin. Behind the camera too are a number of Roach luminaries: Direction by James W. Horne, story by J.A. Howe and George Stevens. It was even photographed by Len Powers.
This seems like a very deliberate attempt by Universal to bolster the quality of their shorts by this wholesale hiring of Roach cultivated talent. From what I can tell by checking out IMDB, this arrangement didn’t last long. I contacted Richard W. Bann, film historian and Hal Roach Studios expert about all of this Roach talent turning up at Universal and he gave me an explanation of why this happened. It turned out that long tenured exec at Hal Roach Studios, Warren Doane, had left and was setting up shop making shorts at Universal at a time when lot of HRS talent was becoming available owing to an economy drive at the instigation of the cost-cutting studio manager, Henry Ginsberg, newly installed at HRS to watch the money there. Ginsberg felt that to save the studio money, talent like this was expendable! Well, that’s show biz.
This is a very cute film. Not quite in the vein of a Hal Roach comedy, but with many nice and familiar touches nonetheless. Well worth 20 minutes of your time. Enjoy!
A word about this print: This 16mm copy of this film I have was printed in 1944 and is starting to deteriorate. It is infected with something known as “vinegar syndrome.” I have stabilized the print a bit by cleaning it with a film preservation and cleaning solution called Vitafilm and it is now carefully stored, but someday my 16mm copy might be rendered unwatchable. Only time will tell. This film also had its share of damaged sprockets which I have repaired the best I could. The film runs fine and only jumps a bit 3 time or so during the course of its 20 minutes running time.

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