I'm not sure what exactly lured us in but Andrea and I watched three of these movies all the way up until midnight.
These were movies based on the classic comic strip Blondie. As if stepping right out of the newspaper pages, Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake brought to life Blondie and Dagwood Bumstead over the course of 28 movies made from 1938 to 1950.
Here are the three of these movies that Andrea watched on Saturday.
"Blondie Plays Cupid" (1940)
A 4th of July vacation out of town goes sideways for the Bumsteads when they wind up on the wrong train and then left o hitchhike their way across country back roads.
It's here they cross paths with a young couple who just want to get married. The would be bride's cantankerous father and his shotgun have an opposing view of the situation. Blondie concocts a plan to help the young kids elope and Dagwood's drafted to fill in when the groom twists his ankle.
This plan is running into problems before it can get started. Expect things to get worse.
Dagwood picks the wrong bedroom window and hilarity ensues with shotgun blasts, exploding sticks of dynamite, a gushing oil well and the Bumsteads catch fire.
Don't worry, they'll be fine.
"Blondie In Society" (1941)
Dagwood lends a childhood friend $50 who's a total nogoodnik who repays the loan with Chin Up, a Great Dane show dog who isn't a very good show dog: whenever he's put on display in a dog show, he goes to sleep.
Which is the least of his problems. Chin Up is very large, very destructive and eats a lot. So he has those things going for him.
It's bad enough that Blondie actually goes to see a lawyer about a divorce from Dagwood. Don't worry, it doesn't come to that.
There's all sorts of shenanigans where a variety of different people do AND do not want Chin Up for any number of reasons. In the end, the Bumsteads come out ahead. I think.
I need to do the math, adding up all the debts incurred because of Chin Up versus whatever money he won.
I think the Bumsteads will be lucky if they break even.
Also, Penny Singleton has a lovely singing voice.
"Blondie's Blessed Event" (1942)
Baby Dumpling has had it with being called Baby Dumpling. His name is Alexander.
This is not the only the change in the Bumstead household. Daisy has puppies that don't look like her.
And Blondie has brought home a bundle of joy of her own, a baby daughter.
And while on a business trip to Chicago, Dagwood made a new friend, a playwright/actor named George Wickley. George has arrived at the Bumstead residence for a visit that never ends and it's getting on Blondie's last nerve.
Don't worry, it will all work out.
Things did not work out for the main cast of the Blondie series.
Well, she kept busy working on stage and in TV, becoming the voice of Jane Jetson in the The Jetsons series.
After Beware of Blondie in 1950, Arthur Lake never made another film, forever typecast as Dagwood Bumstead. Lake was Dagwood in a short-lived 1957 Blondie TV series. Embracing his role as Dagwood, Lake would give speeches to civic organizations, posing for pictures with a Dagwood sandwich.
After the end of the Blondie series, Larry Simms left Baby Dumpling Alexander and his movie career behind. Larry joined the Navy then studied aeronautical engineering at California Polytech, later working the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
The Blondie movies we saw were kind of dumb but they were fun, playing with the conventions of the comic strip such as Dagwood always running late and crashing into the mailman. Blondie can be a bit ditzy but she's grounded with warmth and compassion. She is a bit smarter than Dagwood but not by a lot so it's a fairly level playing field on who will screw up what at any given moment.
Larry Simms as Alexander has an especially droll delivery when commenting on the absurdities of his parents' predicaments.
Over all, these Blondie movies were a surprising and welcomed respite from the cares of the world.
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