ZENOBIA (1939) ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Gordon Douglas
Oliver Hardy, Harry Langdon, Billie Burke,
Jean Parker, James Ellison, Alice Brady,
June Lang, Olin Howland, J. Farrell MacDonald,
Stepin Fetchit, Hattie McDaniel, Philip Hurlic
Oliver Hardy, in one of the few sound films he made without Stan Laurel, plays a small-town doctor in post-Civil War Mississippi. Harry Langdon, years beyond his heyday as one of the silent era's great comedy stars, plays a medicine-show impresario whose main attraction is an elephant. That could be an interesting pairing, but the material's not up to it, and Langdon's not Laurel when it comes to chemistry with Ollie. The racial stereotyping is awkward at best, and excruciating whenever Stepin Fetchit is on screen. Good performance by the elephant, though.
