Earthworm Tractors 1936
Joe E. Brown was an ideal choice for the character of Alexander Botts, the brash, arrogant “natural born salesman” created for The Saturday Evening Post by William Hazlett Upton. As a representative for the Earthworm Tractor company, Botts tries to convince old-fashioned lumberman Guy Kibbee to buy his newfangled products. Several disastrous slapstick sequences later (including an hilarious setpiece in which Botts unwittingly tows away Kibbee’s entire house!), Botts closes the deal, winning the hand of Kibbee’s daughter June Travis in the process. Despite the character’s unremitting cockiness, Joe E. Brown manages to make Alexander Botts immensely likeable. Earthworm Tractors was the next-to-last film on Joe E. Brown’s Warner Bros. contract, and (with rare exceptions like 1938’s The Gladiator) his last truly worthwhile vehicle of the thirties.
