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Curly-haired Bert
Wheeler played an ever-smiling innocent, who was easily led and not very bright, but who would also sometimes display a stubborn streak of conscience. Bespectacled Robert Woolsey played a genially leering, cigar-smoking, fast-talking idea man who often got the pair in trouble. The
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was first made available on DVD in its complete version (including the
Technicolor sequence) by the Roan Group (currently distributed through Troma) after Cary Roan was able to locate color elements. This release suffers from problematic framing.
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After
Stevens left the series, the team faltered. In some of these later films Bert and Bob do not even appear as a team, but as strangers who encounter each other by chance. Woolsey's health deteriorated in 1936, and after struggling to complete
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in 1952, and continued to perform in summer stock theater and in nightclubs, either alone or with a partner (first writer-comedian Hank Ladd, later comedian-singer Tom Dillon).
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By 1931 Wheeler & Woolsey were so popular that RKO attempted to generate twice the
Wheeler & Woolsey income by making two solo pictures—one with Wheeler (
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Nine of the 21 movies the duo made together were released in a DVD collection titled "Wheeler & Woolsey: RKO Comedy
Classics Collection" in March 2013 by
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Such double-entendre gags were a hallmark of early
Wheeler & Woolsey comedies, although they were severely curtailed after the reconstitution of the
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were released as a two disc set in
December 2010. Four additional W&W films were released individually through the Warner Archive in May 2012:
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Archives released the "RKO Comedy Classics Collection Vol. 2" in October 2016. This includes six films:
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in 1937, he was no longer able to work; he died of kidney disease on
October 31, 1938, ending the partnership.
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The
Wheeler & Woolsey movies are loaded with joke-book dialogue, original songs, puns, and sometimes racy
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in 1934. Dressing in drag and other forms of gender inversion were also staples of their films.
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In the early 1940s, after Woolsey had died, Wheeler struggled to restart his career and asked
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Wheeler continued to work off and on through the 1960s. His later appearances were mostly on
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The duo, although largely forgotten now, were at the peak of their careers in the 1930s.
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Wheeler and Woolsey: The Vaudeville Comic Duo and Their Films, 1929-1937 by Edward Watz
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performers were initially teamed as the comedy relief for the 1927 Broadway musical
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Woolsey (worried about a noblewoman): She's liable to have us beheaded.
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Woman (coyly indicating her legs): Were you looking at these?
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Woolsey: Sure, she can be-head. (i.e., "She can be had.")
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The Official Dorothy Lee, Wheeler & Woolsey Tribute
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at Slapsy Maxie's, and would later appear on Gleason's
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27:American vaudeville comedy double act
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224:Flirt: Sure! But first, sing to me!
94:were an American vaudeville comedy
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243:showing at the Liberty Theater in
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1287:Wheeler & Woolsey Fan Page
1177:"DVD Ribaldry Before the Code"
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855:Roscoe Horne, the Rainmaker
830:A Night at the Biltmore Bowl
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1246:Bert Wheeler
1210:. Retrieved
1208:. 2001-10-01
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171:(1930)
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