Henry (Enrico) Armetta (1888-1945) is top of mind at the moment because I recently watched the Marx Brothers’ The Big Store (1941) while putting together my new book and prepped for Marxfest. You see? My job is NOT all its cracked up to be! Armetta was the man who played the REAL Italian in a scene opposite Chico Marx, the fake Italian. That was Armetta’s whole jam. Born in Palermo, Sicily, he played humorous, affectionate Italian stereotypes in the movies. His characters were often named Tony. For a wild twist, in his early days he went by the screen name “Tony Martin”, which was also the name of the crooner and male ingenue in The Big Store.
Armetta arrived in the U.S. as a fourteen year old stowaway on board a cargo ship. A succession of odd jobs led to a gig as a clothes presser and valet at the Lambs Club (an organization of which your correspondent is a card-carrying member!) Raymond Hitchcock rightly pegged him as a “character” and gave him a chorus part in The Yankee Consul and thus his career in show business began. Most of Armetta’s publicity stills look like the one above, caught in the act of a hearty, raspy cackle. He could also shift gears into florid consternation with lots of hand gestures, the kind of stuff that was made for bit parts in the pictures, often as barbers, Italian restaurant proprietors, and the like. He broke into films circa 1915.
Some classic comedy credits: he appeared with Buster Keaton in The Passionate Plumber (1932), Speak Easily (1932), and What, No Beer? (1933), the last two also featuring Jimmy Durante; Prosperity (1932) with Marie Dressler and Polly Moran; The Cohens and Kellys in Trouble (1933); So This is Africa (1933) with Wheeler and Woolsey; Fra Diavolo (1933) with Laurel and Hardy; and Ghost Catchers (1943) with Olsen and Johnson. You can also see him in such classics as Scarface (1932), A Farewell to Arms (1932), The Black Cat (1934), Imitation of Life (1934), and Magnificent Obsession (1935). In Top of the Town (1937) with George Murphy (also born July 4) he played a character named “Bacciagalluppi” — surely an inspiration for Joe Kirk’s character on The Abbott and Costello Show?
Colonel Effingham’s Raid (1946) was the last of Henry Armetta’s over 150 films.
Speaking of the Marx Brothers, I sure do hope you will check out my new book The Marx Brothers Miscellany: A Subjective Appreciation of the World’s Greatest Comedy Team (2024).