The Reel Life Of Bobby Jones

"Want some laughs?" Tol'able David says to Jones.

It appears that Joe E. Brown and Frank Craven are playing golf. They approach slowly, both uncommonly awkward, and hardly the congenial companions whose friendship could be called one of the virtues of the game. Brown is nattily attired in white knickers and checked socks; Craven wears an old hat, rumpled trousers and is smoking a pipe. Both were relative newcomers to Hollywood. Craven was type-cast as the homespun philosopher he later played for years in Our Town. He was a stage star and a playwright, and he could also play golf; in fact, one of his early stage successes was The Nineteenth Hole, which he wrote and in which he starred. As for Brown, he was a slapstick comedian with a wide mouth and highly mobile features whose ability to change his expression in an instant from elation to tearful self-pity made him an ideal choice to play the role of a golfer whose ball was generally in the rough. But being a former circus acrobat and professional baseball player, he was not as unathletic as he seemed.

With Jones and Barthelmess looking on, Brown yells at Craven, "Don't tell me how to hold my club!"

"I am not telling you how to hold your club," Craven says with dignity.

"If I take any lessons, we've got a pro here!"

"Will you please keep quiet," Craven says, with as much hauteur as his pipe and his awkward stance will permit, "until after I make this shot?"

And so it goes. Craven swings at the ball, and it lands near the cup. "If you fell in a crick you'd come out covered with goldfish!" says Brown, now beside himself. The camera just keeps on filming it all.

"Hah, hah, hah!" says Craven, laughing craftily. "He who laughs last laughs last."

The bickering of these two professional scene-stealers goes on so long that Jones begins to wonder if he will have a chance to give instruction in anything. Brown's ball is bunkered. He takes an awkward swing at the sand, and, to everyone's astonishment, the ball flies onto the green and rolls into the cup. It happened—no camera trickery—Brown really sank the bunker shot. This was one of the moments George Marshall had in mind when he said they had a lot of fun making the films. "Boy, what a shot!" cries Tol'able David, speaking not as an actor now but as a shocked golfer. The camera turns quickly to Jones, whose eyes have suddenly narrowed. "That makes the situation entirely different," he says thoughtfully, and to no great purpose.

At length the horseplay ends, Craven misses a short putt, Brown has won their game and, as everyone else starts for the clubhouse, Craven appeals to Jones for a putting lesson. This gives Jones a last-gasp opportunity, before the allotted 10 minutes is up, to make some concise comments about putting—324 words, to be exact—and to demonstrate what he means. They were well-chosen words, and even though the plot line had rather gotten out of hand because of Brown's remarkable shot, there was enough Jones instruction to satisfy the golfer in the movie audience.