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Clip description
Joe (George Wallace) and his mate 'Happy’ Morgan (Joe Valli) get drunk after Joe’s heart has been broken. Joe demonstrates his skills at jazz-style 'scat’ singing, with three harmonising fellow drinkers, before falling several times on his ear.
Curator’s notes
Most stage comedians were also singers and dancers, but Wallace was one of the most accomplished on the Australian scene in the 1920s and ’30s. He was astonishingly agile, and this clip demonstrates that ability, as well as his unexpected talent as a jazz singer. Wallace had plenty of experience playing a drunk, after five years of 'Dinks and Onkus’, the vaudeville act he did with Jack Patterson from 1919 until 1924, but he probably does it better than any other Australian actor – with strong competition from Bert Bailey in Grandad Rudd (1935).
