page_title: Leon Errol
section_title: Films
hierarchical_section_title: Leon Errol / Films
caption_attribution_description: English: Still from the American short comedy film Buggins (1920) with Leon Errol, on page 50 of the August 7, 1920 Exhibitors Herald.
context_page_description: Leon Errol was an Australian comedian and actor in the United States, popular in the first half of the 20th century for his appearances in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in films.
context_section_description: Errol made his first film, a comic short subject called Nearly Spliced, in 1916 (it was not released before 1921), for pioneering east-coast producer George Kleine. He left Broadway and went to Hollywood, appearing in Sally (1925). He was third-billed for Samuel Goldwyn's One Heavenly Night in 1931. The box-office for that film was disappointing, but overall Errol made a smooth transition to films in a variety of comedy roles. His comic trademark was a wobbly, unsteady walk, moving as though on rubber legs; this bit served him well in drunk routines.
  Errol starred in a long string of two-reel comedy shorts, which began at Columbia Pictures in 1933. He also starred in two pioneering three-strip Technicolor shorts made at Warner Brothers, Service with a Smile (released July 28, 1934) and Good Morning, Eve! (September 22, 1934), the former beating the RKO Radio Pictures release La Cucaracha by five weeks as the first live action, all-Technicolor release.
  Moving to RKO Radio Pictures in 1934, Leon Errol continued to make six shorts per year until his death in 1951. Most of these were marital farces in which Leon would get mixed up with a pretty girl or an involved business proposition, and face the wrath of his wife (usually Dorothy Granger); the theme song to the series was the nursery rhyme, London Bridge Is Falling Down.
  Leon Errol is well remembered for his energetic performances in the Mexican Spitfire movies (1939-43) opposite Lupe Vélez; Errol had the recurring dual role of affable Uncle Matt and foggy British nobleman Lord Epping. Monogram Pictures signed Errol to appear as fight manager Knobby Walsh in eight of its "Joe Palooka" sports comedies (1946–50), one of which cast Errol as a thinly disguised version of Lord Epping. Errol's best known non-series appearance is in the nonsensical comedy feature Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941), released by Universal Pictures and starring fellow vaudeville and Ziegfeld alumnus W. C. Fields. Universal also kept Errol busy in 14 feature films.
  On February 4, 1950, Errol appeared on television as a guest on The Ed Wynn Show, broadcast live to the West Coast on CBS (seen on kinescope film to the East and Midwest on February 18, 1950).  
  Errol's next-to-last film, Lord Epping Returns (1951), reprised his famous characterization (and some of the gags) introduced in the 1939 feature Mexican Spitfire.
  Footage from Errol's short subjects was incorporated into RKO's compilation features Variety Time, Make Mine Laughs, Footlight Varieties, and Merry Mirthquakes. RKO kept Leon Errol in the public eye by reissuing his older comedies throughout the 1950s. His RKO shorts soon became a staple of syndicated television.
caption: In a short silent comedy, Buggins (1920)
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