Fri 24 Oct 2014
Movie Review: A YANK IN LIBYA (1942).
Posted by Steve under Action Adventure movies , Reviews[9] Comments
A YANK IN LIBYA. PRC, 1942. Walter Woolf King, Joan Woodbury, H. B. Warner, Parkyarkarkus (Harry Parke), Duncan Renaldo, George Lewis, William Vaughn, Howard Banks, Amarilla Morris. Director: Albert Herman.
There is no movie so bad that someone leaving a review on IMDb won’t call it a Poverty Row Classic. (Check it out.) This isn’t the worst movie I’ve seen, but it’s in the bottom dozen. The only reason I kept watching it — well, two actually — was the presence of two actors whose performances I found far and away above the rest of the cast.
The first was Joan Woodbury, far from being well known, but whose good looks and charm on the screen always delight me, and the second was a veteran radio actor named Parkyarkarkus, aka Harry Einstein, who I’d never see in person before. On radio he played a pseudo-Greek character on several comedy variety programs, including Eddie Cantor’s and Al Jolson’s as well as a short running one of his own called “Meet Me at Parky’s.”
In A Yank in Libya he plays a jovial heavy-set seller of razor blades in a Libyan marketplace, clad in Arab garb as a far-fetched transplant from Brooklyn, added (one presumes) for comedy relief, but as time goes on, he seems to know more and more about what is going on than the hero does.
Which entails a Nazi attempt to incite the Muslim tribal leaders to rebel against the British rule. Walter Woolf King (whose name I don’t ever remember seeing on the screen before) is a reporter who uncovers the plot, a brash sort of know-nothing role, while Duncan Renaldo plays the tribal leader most friendly to the British, and rather unconvincingly, to my eyes.
It occurs to me to add that most of the other players in this film do a better than average job of it. It’s the story that lets them down, a patchwork affair fastened together by good wishes and duct tape, that and the abysmal budget they must have had to work with. The list of cast members is a large one, but if there are more than five people on the screen at any time, the footage was swiped from another movie.
But one last note. If you think you’d be interested in seeing this movie, I’d suggest using the video link embedded above. It’s free, and the sound quality, the small amount I’ve watched of it, is tremendously better than the version on DVD from Alpha Video, which I paid an almost reasonable four dollars for.
October 24th, 2014 at 2:31 pm
For a long, detailed and very funny review of this film, I’ve just discovered this one online:
http://millionmonkeytheater.com/AYankInLibya.html
When I say “very funny,” I mean it. He’s also correct in describing every facet of the film.
October 24th, 2014 at 5:04 pm
Thanks for the link I’ll look it up, but I wouldn’t watch CASABLANCA if Parkkykarkus was in it. He’s more annoying than Joe Penner.
October 25th, 2014 at 12:39 am
I just watched this film on youtube and I have to quote one of the great lines in movie history: “You dog of an unbeliever, may your father never cease to bark”.
It’s also a dog of a movie!
October 25th, 2014 at 12:45 am
Walter Woolf King played the haughty opera singer whose performance is sabotaged by the Marx Brothers in A NIGHT AT THE OPERA.
October 25th, 2014 at 3:09 pm
I have to agree with David about Parkkykarkus. The films I’ve seen with him are awful.
One can turn this into a Mad Magazine style tip for reviewers: “You know you are really in trouble, when Parkkykarkus is the most interesting thing in a movie!”
***
Walter Woolf King played a judge on numerous episodes of THE VIRGINIAN. At least, according to the IMDB. However, I never noticed him.
October 25th, 2014 at 4:09 pm
The Million Monkey website has lots of great reviews. Highly recommended.
October 25th, 2014 at 8:36 pm
These days, Harry Einstein (Parkyakarkus) is remembered for these things:
– His three sons:
Charles Einstein, sportswriter and novelist, compiler of The Fireside Books Of Baseball.
Bob Einstein, comedy writer-performer, also known as bungling daredevil Super Dave Osborne.
… and Albert Einstein, known professionally as Albert Brooks.
– Harry Einstein, speaking at a banquet-roast for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, delivered one of the funniest speeches ever given at such an event. It can be found online, and is worth the search.
The speech’s reputation is accompanied by the fact that after Harry Einstein finished, he suffered a massive heart attack and died, right there on the dais.
– Just prior to his death, Harry Einstein appeared on Playhouse 90 in a comic-dramatic role.
The play was titled “No Time At All”, and was based on a novel by Charles Einstein (op cit.).
“No Time At All” was filmed rather than live, different for Playhouse 90, and can be found on c2c DVD, complete with the original commercials (and are there ever a bunch of them).
This play has an all-star cast, including Keenan Wynn, Jane Greer, Betsy Palmer, Jack Haley, Buster Keaton, Chico Marx, Charles Bronson, and a bunch of others – and Harry Einstein gets billing at the front of the show with everybody else (and in the closing credits, he is IDed as Parkyakarkus).
I’ve got the DVD, as well as a copy of Charles Einstein’s original novel (which is plugged during the closing credits), which is how I know all this stuff, and why I’m passing it all on to you, FWIW.
October 25th, 2014 at 8:56 pm
Thanks for posting all that info about the Einstein family, Mike. I’ve been busy the past few days and meant to talk about the sons a little bit, but it’s a good thing I didn’t get a chance, since you gave us everything I knew, and more.
October 26th, 2014 at 6:18 pm
Charles Einstein also wrote THE NAKED SPUR filmed as Fritz Lang’s WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS.
Remarkable family, but I still found the Dad highly annoying in films. though that may be because his career consisted of comedy relief in films that really needed much more than that.
He did at least one other with Joan Woodbury where she plays a nightclub singer involved with gangsters and an undercover cop posing as a trumpet player. Parke was particularly annoying in that one and Joan’s dancing and singing talents left something to be desired despite an otherwise good script and idea.
That doesn’t mean he wasn’t funny on radio or in other media, he might have been better in film given half a chance, but the few I have seen him in are not improved by his presence.
Re a comic as a spy, we did have two actors who were spies and one baseball player. Sterling Hayden was OSS, Anthony Quayle SOE, and Moe Berg OSS.