Not long ago — in this item — we linked to the opening minutes of the Olsen and Johnson comedy, Hellzapoppin', which is not widely available in the U.S. these days. Today, we have the trailer for another film they made, Crazy House, which is an even weirder movie. I don't know why someone hasn't released these in this country on DVD since, with a little drumbeat, they'd probably do quite well. Hellzapoppin' is out on DVD in other nations, including what I hear is a lovely new edition in England. So what's the deal? Is our money not good? Are they all pissed at us over Gitmo?
Crazy House actually came out in America on VHS some years ago…but even though I would have snatched it up if I'd known about it, I didn't. Never saw an ad, never saw it in stores, nothing. General rule of thumb: If there's a weird comedy movie out on home video and I don't know about it, the releasing company has done their best to keep it a secret. I'd hate to think someone is looking at the sales of that, ignoring the non-existent promotional campaign and saying, "Guess there's no interest in Olsen and Johnson movies in America." Of course there isn't…just as there'd be no interest in Three Stooges films if they'd been kept that well-hidden. (Wait'll you see the Stooges DVD sets that are in the works. The complete works of Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein will never get such loving treatment. Of course, he wasn't as funny as Curly.)
Matter of fact, one of the ways the big studios could make better use of the Internet and services like YouTube is to circulate teaser clips like the one we're offering you today. I bet that if there was a link at the end of this where you could click and order the whole DVD from Amazon for a reasonable price, a lot of you would click. The film only gets sillier after this excerpt.
So here it is…and yes, speaking of the Stooges, that is indeed Shemp Howard in the film. He plays a guy who's always trying to sell Olsen and Johnson everything that isn't nailed down and being persistent about it. The folks at Universal's home video company could learn a thing from that man.