The Sex Life of the Polyp (1928)
A flustered physician addresses a women's club on the reproductive habits of the polyp, fumbling his slides and notes and getting hopelessly tangled in his own scientific digressions.
A Fox Movietone sound short built entirely on Robert Benchley’s deadpan-lecturer persona, adapted from his own humorous essay and among the earliest surviving examples of the comic monologue on film. It was selected for the National Film Registry.
Background
The Sex Life of the Polyp is a short Fox Movietone sound film built entirely on Robert Benchley’s deadpan lecturer persona. It was adapted from Benchley’s own humorous essay and is among the earliest surviving examples of the comic monologue on film. Thomas Chalmers directed this roughly eleven-minute comedy, which was selected for the National Film Registry. Its humor rests almost entirely on Benchley’s delivery, since the film has no plot beyond the lecture itself. That makes it a useful record of how early sound cinema adapted stage and radio humor to the screen.
What to watch for
Pay attention to Benchley’s halting, self-important manner as he addresses a women’s club on his subject. The gags come from his fumbling with slides and notes, and from the way his scientific digressions keep carrying him further from the point. The film works by letting the lecture’s formal tone and its absurd content pull against each other. Notice how often he stops to recover his composure, since that rhythm is the engine of the comedy. Viewers who know Benchley’s later short films will recognize the same character, a confident authority figure undone by his own material.
