Cinema Revisited: GENIUS AT WORK (1946)
Genius at Work
Directed by Leslie Goodwins. Starring Wally Brown and Alan Carney, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, Anne Jeffreys. Released October 20, 1946 by RKO. Running time: 61 minutes.
The popularity of Abbott and Costello resulted in RKO attempting to duplicate this success with their own makeshift comedy team of Wally Brown and Alan Carney. They copied Bud and Lou’s penchant for service comedies, with films like “Adventures of a Rookie,” “Rookies in Burma,” and “Seven Days Ashore,” but usually fared better when acting as comic support for the likes of Robert Mitchum (“The Girl Rush”) or Frank Sinatra (“Step Lively”).
Perhaps the best of this ersatz comedy team’s films were its horror comedies “Zombies on Broadway” and “Genius at Work,” each featuring Bela Lugosi in the supporting cast, and the latter also tossing in Lionel Atwill for good measure. “Genius at Work” is also their last film together (unless one wants to count Disney’s “Absent Minded Professor” in which they appear in separate roles, but in the same scene – Wally is the basketball coach and Alan is a referee).
“Genius at Work” is a remake of “Super Sleuth” (1937), an RKO feature which starred Jack Oakie. It also reminds one of Abbott and Costello’s “Who Done It” (1942) due to its radio studio setting. Brown and Carney do a regular radio show in which they play sleuths, and the public believes they could very well be actual private eyes. The police, however, realize they are mere actors, and do not take kindly to the duo’s cracks about the force.
The script was written by one mystery writer (Robert E. Kent) and one comedy writer (Monte Brice) who had also collaborated on the previous Brown and Carney mystery comedy Zombies on Broadway the year before. Genius at Work is about as good as Zombies, providing the same sort of silly fun and corny dialog. There is no straight man in the Brown and Carney dynamic. Each of them is a silly bumbler. Carney, the pudgier one, even tries to ape Costello’s inimitable scare reaction. Brown is whinier, and has none of the grounded nature of a straight man like Bud Abbott or Dean Martin.
But somehow, the short length and breezy manner make this movie pleasant enough viewing, and the humor is outrageously amusing because of its cornball stupidity and not in spire of it. The authenticity added by Atwill and Lugosi further bolsters the general aesthetic. Atwill purrs his lines with a terrifying confidence, while Lugosi’s presence, even if only because of cinematic reputation, offers its usual frightening charisma. “Genius at Work” completed filming in August of 1945, and by the time it was released during the Halloween season of 1946, Atwill had already died the previous Spring. Thus, “Genius at Work” turned out to be the last movie featuring Atwill.
When Alan almost gets decapitated by a guillotine, Wally remarks, “don’t lose your head” and “if you hold your head just right you could get a pretty decent shave.” Such is the comic dialog abounding in this movie. However, it is interesting that the duo does not rely on a romantic leading man to solve the crime or battle the bad guys. Resourceful Wally literally pulls the rug out from under Bela, causing him to toss his gun in the air, and allowing Wally to catch it. Of course things get fouled up when Lionel tricks Alan into firing off all the bullets in the gun. They use the old gag where Wally takes a running start to burst through a door, only to have someone open the door just as he approaches. And the film wraps with the comedians teetering on a ledge in a “high and dizzy” manner. Heck, they even use the Three Stooges bit "we're colossal, we're stupendous, we're even mediocre!"
“Genius at Work” hardly took the country by storm when it was released during the 1946 Halloween season. Film Daily stated, “Uninspired and ordinary, the modestly-budgeted production will have to draw its audiences from the ranks of persons whose entertainment demands are readily satisfied. It’s evident there was no genius at work here.” However, moviegoers were, in fact, easily pleased as exhibitors writing to the Motion Picture Herald called it “An excellent comedy,” “the audience got a real bang out of this one,” and “I thought my house would shake down from all the laughter.”