GENIUS AT WORK

 

The 1946 RKO comedy-mystery GENIUS AT WORK is a vehicle for the studio's slapstick team of Wally Brown and Alan Carney, but the main reason anyone would discuss it now is that it also stars Lionel Atwill and Bela Lugosi. 

Wally Brown & Alan Carney were RKO's attempt at an Abbott & Costello-like comedic duo. The two were each ex-vaudevillians, but they were paired by the studio for the big screen. If Brown & Carney are remembered or even mentioned today, it's due to GENIUS AT WORK and ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY, another film that also featured Bela Lugosi. The duo made 8 movies together as a team at RKO, but I've never seen any of the ones that don't feature Bela....I don't think any of those films ever get presented on cable TV stations, even TCM. 

Brown & Carney were no Abbott & Costello. The two men didn't have distinct personalities--they're both clumsy dolts, and you can't call one of them the leader or the boss. They insult each other equally, and they're both practically useless in any important situation. They react to everything in a very hammy way, as if being as outlandish as possible is a sure way to be funny. Alan Carney is the chubby one, and at times it feels as if he's trying to be a Lou Costello-type, but he's nowhere near as entertaining. 

In GENIUS AT WORK, Brown & Carney work as radio performers on a program that focuses on real life crimes. (How do the friends and loved ones of various crime victims feel about a couple of dopey comics discussing the tragic circumstances?) Their writer is Ellen (Anne Jeffreys), and the trio are advised by a famed criminologist named Latimer Marsh (Lionel Atwill). Ellen and the boys are determined to find out the identity of The Cobra, a murderous fiend who has been terrorizing the city. The thing is, Marsh is the Cobra, and he's assisted in his nefarious activities by his servant Stone (Bela Lugosi). The Cobra believes that Ellen and her silly co-workers are getting too close to his secret, so he plots against them, while they in turn investigate him. 

The plot of goofy radio detectives solving crimes was used far better in Abbott & Costello's WHO DONE IT? and a series of Red Skelton movies at MGM. Those films are on a far better level than GENIUS AT WORK, with the result being that the RKO feature comes off as a cheap knock-off of superior material. GENIUS is only a little over an hour, so it moves decently enough, but all the plot elements are very familiar, and the presumed comedy falls far short of what the Three Stooges could pull off. 

The ultimate reason to watch GENIUS AT WORK is to see Lionel Atwill and Bela Lugosi. Sadly Atwill died of cancer before GENIUS was even released, but here he looks hale and hearty. Atwill also doesn't play Marsh as sinister and suspicious--he's charming and affable, even after his cover has been blown. Atwill even gets to disguise himself in drag! Whatever troubles the actor may have had during filming, he seems to be enjoying himself immensely (although why a person as intelligent and as cultured as the Cobra would want to randomly commit major crimes is never explained). 

As for Bela Lugosi, he's very much in Atwill's shadow here, constantly calling him "Sir". It's another one of Bela's way-too-many sneaky servant roles. Lugosi does get to do the old routine of trying to scare the comics in a spooky house, but overall he's sadly underused. (He does get to give a Moe Howard-type of reaction when an antique weapon is dropped on his foot.) Anne Jeffreys worked with Brown & Carney numerous times, but she's so attractive, bright, and personable that one wonders why a woman like her would waste her time with such dummies. 

Brown, Carney, Lugosi, and Anne Jeffreys fared much better in ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY, a more entertaining film which happens to be a clever satire on the RKO Val Lewton series. GENIUS AT WORK happened to be the last official Brown & Carney teaming, which isn't surprising. (The movie was directed by Leslie Goodwins, who ironically also helmed Universal's THE MUMMY'S CURSE, one of the better entries in that series.) 

GENIUS AT WORK does remind one that Bela Lugosi had a long history of interacting with numerous comedians in films and on television. Bela worked alongside Joe E. Brown, W. C. Fields, the Ritz Brothers, Kay Kyser, the East Side Kids, Old Mother Riley, Red Skelton, and of course Abbott & Costello.....and for the most part he held his own with them. Despite the urban legend that Bela didn't understand American comedy (a legend perpetrated by Tim Burton's otherwise excellent ED WOOD), whenever one sees Lugosi in a humorous scene, his timing is spot on, and he appears to know exactly how to react. Lionel Atwill was also quite good at humor as well--consider his scene-stealing role in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN. Perhaps RKO should have teamed Lugosi and Atwill instead of Brown and Carney.