Variety famously declared STICKS NIX HICK PIX in an unforgettable 1935 headline, but the news never filtered down to radio, where the comedy team of Lum and Abner still entertained a national audience with the comedic comings and goings at the Jot 'Em Down General Store in homespun (and fictional) Pine Valley. The show, created by childhood pals (and former blackface comedy duo) Chester Lauck and Norris Goff, debuted on Arkansas's KTHS in 1931 and soon moved to a national audience, while RKO signed the duo to a series of films. Here, in their second film for RKO (directed by Mack Sennett alumni Malcolm St. Clair) resigned married man Abner helps "bashful bachelor" Lum transform himself into a dashing hero to impress gal pal Geraldine (ZaSu Pitts, also a regular on the Lum and Abner radio show), with typically screwball results. True to its radio roots, the movie is visually unremarkable, but the screenplay (written by Lauck and Goff) is legitimately clever, with gags like "I can ride a horse all right, Miss Geraldine, but I don't know about one of them steeds" polished by their bemused and natural delivery.

By Violet LeVoit