Gouty-footed geezer has a place in the pantheon of forgotten archtypes, like a whiskery gold-brick-buying bumpkin or a white wing, or a hatchet-faced spinster still wearing crinoline.
I'm going to venture that the intended situation is an injury that requires a comfortable convalescence rather than gout.
Gout was generally represented as a rich man's disease, linked to indulgent food and drink and consequently more karma than bad luck. Victims of the highly uncomfortable condition were thus considered fair game for comedy. The movie "Captain Blood" presents a self-pitying aristocrat with the affliction, while the Chaplin short "The Cure" gives lecherous Eric Campbell a sensitive foot for Charlie to abuse. And of course the dyspeptic geezers referenced by Mr. Johnson, the bandaged foot being a shorthand declaration of wealth and bad temper.
There's also Laurel & Hardy's "A PERFECT DAY" (1929) where Edgar Kennedy's Gouty foot is subject to all kinds of painful abuse, including a car being dropped on it. Ollie himself suffered from this condition in "THEM THAR HILLS" (1934). A Porky Pig cartoon featuring a Claude Gillingwater-esque Gouty Goat was seen in "PORKY'S HOTEL" (1939). I'm sure there's probably dozens more incidences of it in the movies from the days of political incorrectness and big belly laughs.
Gouty-footed geezer has a place in the pantheon of forgotten archtypes, like a whiskery gold-brick-buying bumpkin or a white wing, or a hatchet-faced spinster still wearing crinoline.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to venture that the intended situation is an injury that requires a comfortable convalescence rather than gout.
ReplyDeleteGout was generally represented as a rich man's disease, linked to indulgent food and drink and consequently more karma than bad luck. Victims of the highly uncomfortable condition were thus considered fair game for comedy. The movie "Captain Blood" presents a self-pitying aristocrat with the affliction, while the Chaplin short "The Cure" gives lecherous Eric Campbell a sensitive foot for Charlie to abuse. And of course the dyspeptic geezers referenced by Mr. Johnson, the bandaged foot being a shorthand declaration of wealth and bad temper.
There's also Laurel & Hardy's "A PERFECT DAY" (1929) where Edgar Kennedy's Gouty foot is subject to all kinds of painful abuse, including a car being dropped on it.
ReplyDeleteOllie himself suffered from this condition in "THEM THAR HILLS" (1934).
A Porky Pig cartoon featuring a Claude Gillingwater-esque Gouty Goat was seen in "PORKY'S HOTEL" (1939). I'm sure there's probably dozens more incidences of it in the movies from the days of political incorrectness and big belly laughs.