How to Sleep (1935)

[StevePulaski]

How to Sleep (1935)
Directed by: Nick Grinde

Robert Benchley in How to Sleep.

Rating: ★★★

Nick Grinde's How to Sleep is an instructional video on the common practices of winding down, falling asleep, waking up in the middle of the night, and, finally, waking up in the morning to start another day, written with a brilliantly wry comedic focus. Our subject is played by Robert Benchley, as he narrates over an average person's (also played by Benchley) sleep routine, poking fun at the many positions we tend to contort ourselves in while resting, and even mocking the conventions of taking a hot bath with pine fragrance, drinking warm milk, and counting sheep.

During the short, Benchley treads the line of being serious while being playful, creating a short film that merges both approaches into a devilishly fun short. Benchley exerts a great deal of energy, striving to be all that he can be in a short film that demands a lot of energy despite the fact that it's about the process in which one falls asleep. How to Sleep is a short that, when you watch it, you laugh heartily until you recall how there are far too few of these kinds of shorts being replicated in the present.

Starring: Robert Benchley. Directed by: Nick Grinde.