Six of a Kind [VHS]

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Leo McCarey’s amusing Six of a Kind showcases the well-honed comic patter of George Burns and Gracie Allen during the busiest time in their movie career, the mid-1930s. Gracie’s dingbat malapropisms were so perfectly straightforward (“I really shouldn’t drink coffee in the morning; it keeps me awake all day”), and Burns’s straight-man timing so unerring, the pair was often funnier than their material. They road-trip west in this feature (just over an hour), which is actually at its best when W.C. Fields is polishing one of his pool-playing routines. The Burns and Allen chemistry was really at its best in their short films, radio, and TV, but their Paramount features are pleasing entertainment nonetheless. –Robert Horton