Robert Benchley must be an acquired taste. I know that he made a lot of short films in the 1930s and 40s, so he obviously was quite popular. Heck, he even got an Oscar for his short, HOW TO SLEEP. He has a reputation for being extremely glib and clever. However, after seeing several of his shorts, I can say that at least for me, his routine does very little. I don't particularly find his films interesting and it could either mean I am an idiot (the jury's still out on that one) or that his style was popular years ago but doesn't translate well to the 21st century. Mind you, I love older films and am NOT saying that I disliked these shorts because they were old fashioned--I just don't like these particular shorts.

As for THE SEX LIFE OF THE POLYP, it was apparently a popular routine and Benchley was reprising this quaint little speech for a sound short--a novelty in 1928. And this is exactly why I think the film is important--historically, it's among the earliest shorts that were sound. So, it certainly is important in this sense. As for the lecture on the sex lives of these microorganisms, I can't for the life of me see why this was so knee-slapping funny--especially since they weren't all that prudish back in the late 1920s and early 30s (despite this stereotype). Just look at some of the very salacious so-called "Pre-Code" films of the era--where sex was talked about rather openly at times.

For this film to work, the audience reaction or Benchley's reaction should have been more intense. Either he should have behaved even more uncomfortable talking about sex (even among sea life) or the audience should have either become incensed or turned on by this "dirty lecture". On television, "Monty Python's Flying Circus" did a bit perhaps inspired by this Benchley film, but the audience reacted strongly as did the lecturer--making it all very funny. Too much droll humor, for me, made the Benchley film a chore to even complete.

By the way, the film is available at archive.org but the sound is very, very poor. This is common in such early films and its badly in need of conservation.

This is an 11-minute movie that was made almost 90 years ago by director Thomas Chalmers. he was actually more of an actor and directed only 5 short films in his career, all of them in the same year 1928. i guess he lost interest in directing quickly afterward. Here we have a stand-up performance by Robert Benchley from very early in his career. He became a prolific actor and writer in the 17 years after this before he died around the end of World War II. Well.. before watching this film, looking at the title I thought this was possibly a Jean Painlevé documentary with actual animal recordings. But instead it is just one man standing in front of a camera (and an entirely female audience) and telling us (and them) some (not too) funny anecdotes. All in all, nothing memorable to see here. Possibly only worth a watch for fellow stand-up comedians.

Another creaky early short by Robert Benchley on a subject that obviously was on all of these women's mind. Too much time is dedicated to technical flaws of his buffoonish discussion, including the reference to the particular polyp for some reason named after Ethel Barrymore. This is just way beyond silly, using animation to try to demonstrate the mating life of these fictitious sea creatures which somehow become the opposite gender at some point in their life. Benchley adds class to the non-moving camera set up which is about as close to biology as a fish is to a bird in comparison. This one's worth skipping.