What! No Beer?
| What - No Beer? | |
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| Directed by | Edward Sedgwick |
| Produced by | Lawrence Weingarten (uncredited) |
| Starring |
Buster Keaton Jimmy Durante |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
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Release date
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Running time
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66 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
What - No Beer? is a 1933 Pre-Code comedy film starring Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante, and directed by Edward Sedgwick. The studio had also paired Keaton and Durante as a comedy team during this period in The Passionate Plumber and Speak Easily.
Mild-mannered Elmer (Keaton), a taxidermist, and gregarious Jimmy (Durante), a barber, are duped by a confidence woman (Phyllis Barry) and an underworld boss (John Miljan). Elmer and Jimmy reactivate an abandoned brewery in anticipation of the repeal of Prohibition. Their success prompts the crooks to get tough, but Elmer foils them with a truckload of beer barrels.
The filming of What - No Beer? was difficult. Since joining MGM in 1928, Keaton was not accorded the creative freedom that he had enjoyed during the silent era. By 1933 personal problems and a messy divorce were interfering with Keaton's work; he often showed up drunk or not at all for the filming of What! No Beer? He was enough of a professional (and a trained acrobat) to complete the film, doing extreme pratfalls even while visibly impaired.
Elmer J. Butts, taxidermist, goes to a dry rally, where he follows the beautiful Hortense and her gangster boyfriend Butch Laredo into the meeting hall. He sits by Hortense, only to be thrown out after the speaker asks if they want liquor back in this country, and he calls out “Yes!” The next day, Jimmy Potts, driving a car covered in pro-booze stickers, brings a fish to Elmer’s shop for stuffing. It's Election Day, and there's a referendum on Prohibition on the ballot. Jimmy convinces Elmer to vote wet, and they go to the polls only to cause confusion and collapse the booths.
Later, at Jimmy’s barbershop, the radio reports that the country has voted to repeal Prohibition. At a hotel, a group of Spike Moran’s gangsters realize that their bootlegging operation is washed up. They wonder what Butch will do. At Butch’s place, Hortense asks if this means that she can’t have her Rolls Royce town car. Butch tells her she’ll be lucky to have a wheelbarrow, and he shoots the radio. Back at the barbershop, Jimmy breaks off of the celebratory conga line to tell Elmer his million dollar idea: buying a brewery. Elmer wants to be rich, too, so he can marry – and he has $10,000 hidden in his stuffed animals. They collect the money and take it to the president of the bank that foreclosed on the local brewery. Jimmy’s offer of $10,000 cash plus $5,00 a month is quickly accepted.
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