I find the Blondie series, especially the twelve earliest films (there were 28 in all, between 1939 and 1950) directed by Frank Strayer, charming, funny, moving and sometimes a bit hokey. Strayer is good at physical comedy -- there is a bit in Blondie Plays Cupid where Dagwood gets stuck to a freshly painted chair, strongly influenced by Buster Keaton's Sherlock, Jr. (1924) and another where Dagwood tries to climb a ladder from which he had just fallen, breaking all the rungs on the way down. But there are also many elements of sweetness among Blondie (Penny Singleton), Dagwood (Arthur Lake), Baby Dumpling (Larry Simms) and Daisy their dog (though I could do without the reaction shots of Daisy), as they leave the city to stay in the country with Aunt Hannah (Leona Roberts) and Uncle Albert (Spencer Charters) on the 4th of July, after Blondie had confiscated Dagwood and Baby Dumpling's firecrackers.
Strayer and his writers (Richard Flournoy and Karen DeWolf) pack a great deal of plot into a sixty-eight minute film, as Blondie and Dagwood are picked up on their walk from the bus by Millie (Luane Walters) and Charlie (Glen Ford, early in his career) on their way to get married, a marriage interrupted by Millie's father (Will Wright) because Charlie had promised him an oil well on his property that has not yet materialized. Dagwood is enlisted to spirit Millie out of her house but goes in through her father's window instead, though all ends well when Baby Dumpling throws a stick of dynamite that he thinks is a firecracker and that starts the oil gushing, as Dagwood and Blondie reconcile.
One can read my posts about Strayer's other Blondie films: five in 2018 and two in 2020.
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