The Lady and the Lug (1941) User Reviews

Elsa The Champ

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 8 September 2010]

Famous society hostess Elsa Maxwell starred in this short subject, The Lady And The Lug in which America's most famous party giver goes into the highly esoteric field of prize fight manager.

Her nephew and reporter future TV Superman George Reeves wins Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom's contract in a poker game. Rosenbloom who was the light heavyweight champion for a number of years in the early Thirties was now playing fighters for a living and other amiable, but not too bright pugs on the screen.

Elsa is looking for a gimmick for a charity event and Reeves gives her the bright idea to sponsor a prize fight. Maxie goes into training and Elsa right along with him.

The fight itself goes down as one of the classic boxing spoofs of the screen right up there with Harold Lloyd's The Milk Way and Abbott&Costello Meet The Invisible Man. The Lady And The Lug is a good short subject comedy from Warner Brothers and gives us one of Elsa Maxwell's few big screen appearances.

When women want to enter the Rough and Tumble ring of this . . .

[oscaralbert · 7/10 · 28 January 2020]

. . . Man's World, they've got to be willing to put up their dukes and roll with the punches, warns the always eponymous Warner Bros. with THE LADY AND THE LUG. Anticipating "I'm-with-Her-s" Real Life run for the White House a mere 75 years later, the always prophetically prognosticating Warner Boys try to alert the future former First Lady that any wench trying to move back into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue will need to have more going for her than just a secretarial background. THE LADY AND THE LUG shows Oval Office aspirants of the Feminine Persuasion that they must be in the race for the long run, starting with ten-mile jaunts. Warner casts "Elsa" here as the prototypical princess pol, clairvoyantly picturing her in the same weight class as "Hill." The latter's refusal to strip down in the public arena, take a punch and actually get her hands dirty (like Elsa) shows where Life would have been better off imitating Art. (In a dream sequence, Warner predicts that if the first female POTUS nominee tries to stay above the fray up on her High Horse like a prissy Juliet, then some groping Romeo with roving hands surely will bring her down--balcony and all!) As Elsa concludes here, "You can't make a silk purse out of a cauliflower ear."

Presenting Elsa Maxwell, not just another pretty face.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 3 December 2016]

Society queen Elsa Maxwell was known for her society dinners, witty commentary and rotund figure. She's bored with it all, so she takes up prize fighting management, taking on Slapy Maxie Rosenbloom, another pretty face with the brains to match...a flea's. This two reeler comedy short is very funny and giving a rare opportunity to showcase the rarely seen on screen Miss Maxwell. When Rosenbloom finds her on her keester, he misinterprets her claim of being under the table in different terms. I'm surprised that nobody ever cast her in Marie Dressler type roles. She has a very similar presence. When she appears as Juliet on Rosenbloom's dream, audience must have been in stitches. Forgotten today, she deserves rediscovery with her comic timing and once important part in American society.

Good Slapstick Comedy

[lzf0 · 9 September 2010]

This is a rare screen appearance by party giver Elsa Maxwell. Here, she plays herself and is teamed with Slapsy Maxie Rosenbloom and George "Superman" Reeves. Warners comedy shorts were hit or miss, but this one is definitely a hit. Who would ever believe Maxwell as a slapstick comedienne? But she's really good here. Reeves plays it straight while Rosenbloom shows good comedy style. It is doubly funny that Maxwell is the butt of a number of the slapstick gags. She's a natural before the camera. If I had been unaware of her, I would have thought she was a vaudeville comedienne. Rosenbloom does his usual punch drunk routine and Reeves is as smooth as silk. The Romeo and Juliet parody in the middle of the film is hysterical. Even the comedy boxing scene, an idea which had been done to death, is fresh and funny. Add to this the always welcome, bass heavy Warners background music, and you have a winning, funny short.

Elsa Maxwell

[boblipton · 4/10 · 12 June 2020]

To make her charity do a success, Georgia Caine has Elsa Maxwell stage a fight between Slapsie MAxie Rosenbloom and Frank Hagney, aka "One Punch Maguirk."

Most of the humor in this short comes from the contrast between Rosenbloom's dese-dem-doze personality and Miss Maxwell's linkage to high society. Actually, Miss Maxwell wasn't high society, but one of those people who make themselves useful to the idle rich, and become famous for being celebrities as a result. She started out devising games for rich peoples' parties, and wound up being an social arbiter and gossip columnist

Romeo and Juliet Return

[Michael_Elliott · 13 September 2010]

Lady and the Lug, The (1941)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Elsa Maxwell, a famous gossip columnist, plays herself here. Her nephew (George Reeves) wins the contract of a boxer (Max "Slapsie" Rosenbloom) during a poker game and decides to make him fight for a special benefit. This Warner short isn't the greatest comedy ever written and there's no doubt that it's not Oscar-worthy material but there's enough charm and imagination to it that fans of comedies should certainly check it out. What makes the film worth viewing is the fact that both Maxwell and Rosenbloom are willing to make themselves look like idiots in order to get a laugh. I've become a fan of Rosenbloom over the years as I find the former boxer to have a nice comic timing and he's certainly very capable of playing dumb. I was surprised to see how many jokes Maxwell makes about herself and how much abuse she goes through in the film. The highlight of the movie is when the two perform the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. The final boxing match is fairly funny even if it is predictable.