TrueJoshNight
Truly Dreadful Film
SnoReptilePlenty
Memorable, crazy movie
Helloturia
I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.
Cody
One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.
Edgar Allan Pooh
. . . as the reign began for our most beloved leader, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (aka, FDR), who came into office proclaiming his Art of the New Deal (Social Security and Regulation for the Fat Cat One Per Centers who were then destroying America's workers with their job-killing Corrupt Capitalism). Now, with Friday's swear-in for Red Commie KGB operative, the buffoon D.J. Rump as the U.S. Game Show Host-in-Chief, every American should watch MENU again in order to learn how to stuff a duck when that Blessed Day upon which Rump's goose is cooked finally arrives. It's possible, of course, that the new American Czar Vlad "Mad Dog" Putin may decide to cut his losses, and use his Puppet Rump to nuke ALL of our American and NATO military bases at 1 PM the Day After Tomorrow. As the media has been warning for months, the Racist U.S. Constitution Suicide Pact leaves NO time for anyone to conduct sanity tests, impeachment hearings, or high treason trials during the FOUR MINUTES it takes for a "Destroy America!" tweet to morph from the mind of a Megalomaniac Tool to nukes taking flight. Thanks to the Racist Electoral College (concocted by Confederate Slave Rapists to insure that they could thwart Democratic Elections whenever they wished--the Racist Party has swiped FIVE elections from the people already, while the People's Party has yet to hijack ANY election!) and an irrational minority of Red Commie Russian Red State enablers (sharing a very similar mindset with the people of Russia itself, who HAD Democracy, but preferred and chose to live under Satan's Thumb, proving that they cannot be trusted to have a nation of their own!), we ALL may be as dead at Pete Smith's duck by the time you read this. But, as they say, Mass Delusions have consequences, and we're all better off Dead than Red, anyway. So, Pete, Bottoms up, wherever you are Today!
Steve Pulaski
Nick Grinde's Menu is an uproariously funny short film, focusing on a chef (Pete Smith), who is summoned by the narrator of the short (also Smith) to assist a housewife (Una Merkel) in cooking a complete duck dinner with baked apples that will be delicious and not give her husband (Luis Alberni) debilitating indigestion. The narrator talks us through several hilarious scenes between the chef and the housewife, as he teaches her to prepare the duck and the proper steps of seasoning and topping it off before it is cooked.Menu feels like a playful nudge in the sides of the cooking shows we see network Television populated with, despite being over eighty years old. Smith has an elegance and a deadpan sense of wit in the short, frequently poking fun at the ineptitude of the housewife or playing along to the chef's free-spirited cooking process throughout the short. Never is writer Thorne Smith's screenplay too condescending or mean-spirited but, much like the duck dinner, fresh and pleasant, enough to leave one with an appetite for more. At ten minutes, Menu is a fulfilling comedic appetizer.Starring: Pete Smith, Una Merkel, and Luis Alberni. Directed by: Nick Grinde.
Neil Doyle
This is a rare case of a short that was so highly regarded by the makers that it was remade under another title several years later. Audiences must have loved it.I can't say that much for it. A woman (UNA MERKEL), in a modern looking kitchen with all sorts of gadgets, is a complete klutz until, by magic, a chef appears to help her stuff a duck before her husband (FRANKLIN PANGBORN) comes home from work with some company. Otherwise, the poor woman would have nothing to show for her efforts but a mess on the kitchen floor which he clears up immediately. He also shows her how to make baked apples.The real source of amusement is the script, narrated in witty fashion by Pete Smith and making a lot of funny observations.It's funny, not hilarious, and for anyone interested in gourmet cooking it might be even more worth watching.
Clark Richards
Menu---The Burp of a Nation---8/10.This little ditty shows up occasionally on TCM, so you might be lucky, as I was, to accidentally run across it in the ending minutes of a Tivo recording of a classic movie. The running time states that it is 10 minutes in length, but it seems much shorter than that. The short centers on a housewife and her feeble attempts at cooking. Her kitchen is in a shambles; everything she touches produces a sound effect and a wise crack from an omnipotent narrator (Pete Smith). Away from home, the husband sits in his office worrying about what his wife will be concocting in the kitchen for his consumption when he gets home. Meanwhile, at the office, his belly is aching, so he is never far from his bicarbonate of soda, which he keeps in his jacket pocket.The narrator keeps everything moving along very nicely as he throws in one liners, puns and wry observations of the hapless couple. The narrator also punctuates the proceedings by not only dropping in many appropriate sound effects, but also by bringing to life a chef to manage the wife's dinner arrangements. In a puff of smoke the chef enters into the kitchen and proceeds to teach the wife how to stuff a duck and bake some apples.When the husband comes home, the chef has disappeared and so has the husband's bicarbonate. The husband has a meal fit for a king, but he'll only be king for a day, I don't think this wife could make a bowl of cereal.After watching this short, I thought it was made sometime during the 1940's, but was completely shocked to see (while on IMDb) a release date of 1933. I didn't know they used color as early as that.Very short, very tasty and easily digestible. 8/10.Clark Richards