Review of Menu

Menu (1933)
10/10
Kitchen Magician
6 September 2003
An MGM PETE SMITH Short Subject.

A very silly housewife receives help with her dinner MENU - and a cure for her hubby's upset tummy - when a chef magically arrives in her kitchen.

This fanciful little film is an enjoyable bit of early Technicolor fluff. The practical demonstrations, mixed up with the gentle humor, serve up a most pleasing result - almost as appetizing as the roast duck & baked apples. Movie mavens will recognize Franklin Pangborn as the dyspeptic husband, Una Merkel as his featherbrained wife, and Luis Alberni as the remarkable chef, all uncredited.

Off-the-wall narrator Pete Smith would produce a reworked version of this story - with Oscar winning results - four years later in PENNY WISDOM (1937).

Often overlooked or neglected today, the one and two-reel short subjects were useful to the Studios as important training grounds for new or burgeoning talents, both in front & behind the camera. The dynamics for creating a successful short subject was completely different from that of a feature length film, something akin to writing a topnotch short story rather than a novel. Economical to produce in terms of both budget & schedule and capable of portraying a wide range of material, short subjects were the perfect complement to the Studios' feature films.
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