Brown and Carney was a comedy duo consisting of Wally Brown and Alan Carney. The name "Brown and Carney" was rarely used in their era of comedy and still is rarely used today. Both actors were under contract with RKO Radio Pictures. They both were cast in three of the same films in 1943 when RKO decided to put them together as a team as their answer to Abbott and Costello[1]. Brown and Carney's first film as a team Adventures of a Rookie is very similar to Abbott and Costello's 1941 film Buck Privates. RKO Pictures sent Brown and Carney on a vaudeville tour together in 1944[2]. In 1945, writer Monte Brice was going through some older RKO scripts to find a new idea for Brown and Carney's next movie and decided on a remake of Wheeler and Woolsey's 1935 film The Nitwits called Genius at Work[3]. This film would become Brown and Carney's ninth and final film together as a team as the studio dropped the two comedians' contracts in 1946[4]. In all of the team's films except for Seven Days Ashore, Step Lively, and Vacation in Reno, Brown's character is "Jerry Miles" and Carney's character is "Mike Strager." Brown and Carney do not appear in any scene together in the film Vacation in Reno. Even though they were listed in promotional material as "The Comedy Team of Brown and Carney" for 1961's The Absent Minded Professor, as though it was designed as a comeback, they share no scenes. Actress Anne Jeffreys appeared in four of Brown and Carney's films.
After the team's split, Brown continued working in films and appeared on television shows such as I Married Joan, Wagon Train, and My Three Sons until his death in 1961. Carney also continued working in films, appearing in Walt Disney films and also had a cameo as a police sergeant in Stanley Kramer's 1964 film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World[5].
Contents |
Films
- Gangway for Tomorrow (RKO) (1943)
- Mexican Spitfire’s Blessed Event (RKO) (1943)
- Around the World (RKO) (1943)
- Adventures of a Rookie (RKO) (1944) (first film as a team)
- Rookies in Burma (RKO) (1944) (sequel to Adventures of a Rookie)
- Step Lively (RKO) (1944) (with Frank Sinatra) (remake of Marx Brothers' film Room Service)
- Seven Days Ashore (RKO) (1944)
- Girl Rush (RKO) (1944)
- Radio Stars on Parade (RKO) (1945)
- Zombies on Broadway (RKO) (1945) (with Bela Lugosi)
- Genius at Work (RKO) (1946) (last film as a team) (with Bela Lugosi) (remake of Wheeler and Woolsey's film The Nitwits)
- Vacation in Reno (RKO) (1946)
Notes
- ^ Maltin, Leonard (1970). Movie Comedy Teams. New York, NY: Signet Book. pp. p. 335. ISBN:0451044530.
- ^ Maltin, Leonard (1970). Movie Comedy Teams. New York, NY: Signet Book. pp. p. 337. ISBN:0451044530.
- ^ Watz, Edward (1994). Wheeler and Woolsey: The Vaudeville Comic Duo and Their Films, 1929-1937. Jefferson, NC: McFarland Classics. pp. p. 249. ISBN:0786411414.
- ^ Maltin, Leonard (1970). Movie Comedy Teams. New York, NY: Signet Book. pp. p. 338. ISBN:0451044530.
- ^ Maltin, Leonard (1970). Movie Comedy Teams. New York, NY: Signet Book. pp. p. 338. ISBN:0451044530.
External links
See also
 |
This comedy or humor related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
