Other Film Appearances
Smith and Dale made several short comedy films in the late 1920s during the talkie boom. Their comedy relied on verbal interplay and timing, however and they typically made changes to their act slowly. As a consequence, their material was quickly exhausted by the medium of the short film, and they never became big film stars.
Their act can be seen (to excellent advantage) in the feature film The Heart of New York (1932). Based on David Freedman's stage success "Mendel, Inc.," they play a pair of professional matchmakers, constantly bickering back and forth, They also ran through some of their sketches in Paramount Pictures and Vitaphone short subjects. Their "firemen" sketch, in which Joe and Charlie are lazy firemen who hardly pay attention when someone reports a fire, was filmed as The False Alarm Fire Company.
In 1938 Smith and Dale starred in a pair of two-reel comedies for Columbia Pictures, both produced and directed by comedian Charley Chase. Smith and Dale adapted surprisingly well to Columbia's fast-paced format, but they made no further films for the studio; executive producer Jules White didn't care for their dialect shtick and didn't renew their contract.
Smith and Dale also made three Soundies in 1941. In a rare exception to Soundies' all-musical policy, Smith and Dale did spoken-comedy routines.
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