MovieChat Forums > Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935) Discussion > What role does Lew Kelly Play in this Mo...

What role does Lew Kelly Play in this Movie?


According to the IMDb listing (and the on-screen credits), Lew Kelly plays a character named "Adolph Berg." As far as I can tell, no character in the film is ever identified as "Adolph" or "Berg." But when I check back on another Fields film (from the same DVD collection, actually) that Lew Kelly is in, I find that the Sheriff character "Walter" in The Old Fashioned Way looks -- if you can imagine him without the mustache -- something like the "neighborhood patrol" dispatcher that W.C. Fields calls about the burglars in his basement. So perhaps "Adolph Berg" is the dispatcher. Can anyone else confirm this, or comment on it?

A secondary question on this: is the dispatcher for the neighborhood patrol the same guy as the patrolman who actually comes and crawls into Fields's basement? In other words, does one guy both answer the phone and investigate the case? At first I thought the two characters looked very different, but now I'm not so sure. Both guys seem to have the same creases in their face. But if they are supposed to be the same guy, isn't it odd? I mean, you would think someone would have to remain at the dispatch desk and someone else would investigate.

In any case, the dispatcher has about two lines and appears for maybe 10 or 15 seconds of the film. So if two different actors played the dispatcher and the patrolman who arrests the burglars, it would be odd if the actor who had such a brief appearance would make it into the credits, and the actor who is on for several minutes -- in the basement, then taking the crooks downtown, then in the courtroom -- wasn't named at all in the credits. So that makes me think that "Adolph Berg" must be the policeman in the basement, and that the dispatcher, if a different actor, never gets into the credits at all.

Thoughts on any of this?

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It's the same actor, Lew Kelly, both answering the phone and going to the Wolfingers' home. I have just watched it, and I checked the DVD after reading your message.

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Thought it was more interesting that we see a young Walter Brennan here as one of the burglars! A singing one at that!

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