Beware of Blondie

Beware of Blondie (1950) starring Penny Singleton, Arthur Lake, Adele Jergens

In Beware of Blondie, an attractive young client is actually a con woman. And she has her eyes set on Dagwood, while he’s serving as head of the company!

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Comedy Highlights

• Poor Dagwood trying to do his taxes. And hearing numbers from the children’s homework, phone call, etc. And mistakenly puts them on his tax forms.
• Having stayed up all night, exhausted Dagwood goes to bed at 5:30 am. A very clownish routine, when the trash collectors come! His typical mad dash out the front door isn’t a mad dash, since he’s so tired. Despite the mailman’s being prepared.
• Dagwood’s an hour late to open the office …. Since he’s fallen asleep in the elevator!
• The jealous Ollie delights in bringing Miss Clifton into J. C. Dithers’ office …. Where Dagwood’s sleeping.
• When Toby Clifton wants to take Dagwood to look at her proposed locations, he looks at Blondie’s photo …. And the photo nods her approval!
• At the business lunch, while Toby’s drinks champagne, Dagwood’s drinking a tall …. milk.
• At their next lunch, Dagwood tries to sing “La Marseilles” to show that he’s “fluent” in French.
• Toby tries to get Dagwood to come to her hotel — to sign the contract, of course!
• It’s all a ploy to get Dagwood in a compromising position, of course. To hand over one of Dithers’ $5,000 checks in an extortion racket.
• Blondie locking Dagwood out of the bedroom.
• The real owner of Toby Enterprises shows up at the office — and Dagwood faints!
• Dagwood’s nightmare, of being convicted of embezzlement. With Ollie as the judge! Then, working on the rock pile. where the rock keeps getting bigger …
• J. C. Dithers calls at night — he made a mistake! He closed his account at that bank months ago, so the checks are worthless. Dagwood faints again … out of happiness!
• Finally, that poor mailman tries to deliver the mail at night, to avoid Dagwood. But, Dagwood dashes out the door to mail his taxes!

Cast

• Penny Singleton (Blondie’s Hero) … Blondie Bumstead
• Arthur Lake (Blondie Goes Latin) … Dagwood Bumstead
• Larry Simms (Blondie’s Blessed Event) … Alexander Bumstead
• Marjorie Ann Mutchie (Blondie’s Reward) … Cookie Bumstead
• Adele Jergens (Day the World Ended) … Toby Clifton. The attractive, important “client” who’s chasing Dagwood.
• Dick Wessel … Mailman. The suffering mailman.
• Jack Rice (Blondie’s Secret) … Ollie Shaw. He thinks he should have been in charge of the office.
• Alyn Lockwood … Mary. The very nice office secretary. Who tells Ollie off.
• Emory Parnell (Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House) … Herb Woodley. Dagwood’s neighbor, who gets in a shouting match with Dagwood early in the morning.
• Isabel Withers … Harriet Woodley. The gossip, who starts the rumor mill about Dagwood going out to eat with a beautiful woman other than Blondie. It’s idle gossip, of course, since it’s his business lunch with Toby Clifton. But that’s how the rumor weed grows.
• Danny Mummert (Blondie on a Budget) … Alvin Fuddle
• Douglas Fowley (Singin’ in the Rain, Cat-Women of the Moon) … Adolph. Toby’s accomplice, who pretends to be her husband. In order to blackmail Dagwood for $5,000!
• William E. Green (Lost Continent) … Samuel P. Dutton. The man who actually owns Toby Enterprises! And he shows up at the office, expecting to sign the contract …
• Daisy … Daisy, the family dog. And her puppies, of course.

Quotes

Dagwood: These cigars are 2 for a dollar.
Blondie: Mr. Dithers must have kept the 95 cents one for himself.

Mary: He (Dagwood) has seniority.
Ollie: Pity he doesn’t have a head to go with it!

Trivia

• The last of twenty-eight Blondie movies. It would become a television series in 1957 with Arthur Lake, and again in 1968.
• Three Stooges actress Symona Boniface has a minor role as a gossip.
• Another Three Stooges regular, Emil Sitka, has a minor role as the trash collector.