The Sex Life of the Polyp
About The Sex Life of the Polyp
Robert Benchley, as a muddled doctor, lectures a women's club on how the polyp reproduces. He has no live animals, so he holds up photographs. He tells the room that the subject is harder because a polyp can change sex. He then walks through the pictures and the experiments he claims to have run.
Cast & crew
More about The Sex Life of the Polyp
Thomas Chalmers directed. Benchley wrote the lecture and plays it. William Fox produced it. Fox released it on July 25, 1928, in the Movietone sound-on-film process. It runs 11 minutes.
Themes
Making
Benchley performs to the camera as if the club is in the room. The jokes sit in the gap between his confident tone and the photographs.
Reviews
Daniel Eagan discusses the short in America's Film Legacy (A&C Black, 2010).
Music
It was recorded with the Fox Movietone sound-on-film process, so Benchley's lecture is on the track.
Preservation
In 2007 the Library of Congress placed it on the National Film Registry.
Notes
- The routine dates from 1922 and was adapted from a Benchley essay.
- It was the second of Benchley's 46 comedy shorts. Six were made for Fox.
- It was later put into the compilation Robert Benchley and the Knights of the Algonquin.
- Daniel Eagan wrote on it in America's Film Legacy (2010), pages 142–144.
Scenes
- Benchley apologizes for having only photographs.
- He explains that the polyp can change sex, then shows the pictures anyway.
Also available
- Internet Archive (SexLifeOfAPolyp)
- Wikimedia Commons (The Sex Life of the Polyp (1928) by Thomas Hardie Chalmers.webm)
