I just finished watching this film, and I must say, I'm rather disappointed by it. I was hoping for better.
It's not a bad film, but it is definitely flawed. The comedy is definitely uneven. I'm a big Burns & Allen fan, but a fair bit of what's here is not their best stuff. Oh, their performances are great, Gracy is very game with material even when she's got duds to work with. Still, B&A had enough good lines to be worthwhile.
And then there's W.C.Fields. I don't know much Fields, and I was hoping to begin to remedy that with this film. Early on in his performance, I found him rather obnoxious and annoying. The whole drunkard thing gets tired very quickly. But as the movie went on, he did have a number of great lines, and the character became a bit more likable.
The plot is, as everyone has pointed out, paper-thin, but to some extent I find this a weakness. Oh, I love a comedy that doesn't take its plot too seriously (this is why I think the Paramount Marx Brothers are vastly better than the MGM Marx brothers), but in this case, the plot has elements that make no sense that didn't *need* to make no sense. Just another 10 minutes on the writer's part on patching the plot holes would've been all that was needed. In particular, I'm *still* trying to figure out why Dr. Burns, an otherwise wholly sensible and presumably competent character, utterly misdiagnoses a simple rash. Or why the inventor Wong was so almost *orgasmic* about the idea selling his invention to that American Electric company. Or why, if he was SO determined to have American Electric win the rights to the invention, why he even *bothered* to have this whole invite-everyone-to-china-and-have-them-bid-on-it thing. Yeah, I know, you're supposed to ignore these kinds of things and just go with the comedy, but still, these would have been pretty easy problems to fix. For instance, how much better would it have been if the measles misdiagnosis was somehow caused by some unnoticed screwup by Nurse Allen?
Anyway, on the whole, I enjoyed it, but it could've been better. The best bits may have been the quick, surreal, Airplane-esquire bits, such as the sinking of the naval ship, or the car on the fire-escape. Maybe with more of those, I wouldn't have even noticed the plot-holes.
It's not a bad film, but it is definitely flawed. The comedy is definitely uneven. I'm a big Burns & Allen fan, but a fair bit of what's here is not their best stuff. Oh, their performances are great, Gracy is very game with material even when she's got duds to work with. Still, B&A had enough good lines to be worthwhile.
And then there's W.C.Fields. I don't know much Fields, and I was hoping to begin to remedy that with this film. Early on in his performance, I found him rather obnoxious and annoying. The whole drunkard thing gets tired very quickly. But as the movie went on, he did have a number of great lines, and the character became a bit more likable.
The plot is, as everyone has pointed out, paper-thin, but to some extent I find this a weakness. Oh, I love a comedy that doesn't take its plot too seriously (this is why I think the Paramount Marx Brothers are vastly better than the MGM Marx brothers), but in this case, the plot has elements that make no sense that didn't *need* to make no sense. Just another 10 minutes on the writer's part on patching the plot holes would've been all that was needed. In particular, I'm *still* trying to figure out why Dr. Burns, an otherwise wholly sensible and presumably competent character, utterly misdiagnoses a simple rash. Or why the inventor Wong was so almost *orgasmic* about the idea selling his invention to that American Electric company. Or why, if he was SO determined to have American Electric win the rights to the invention, why he even *bothered* to have this whole invite-everyone-to-china-and-have-them-bid-on-it thing. Yeah, I know, you're supposed to ignore these kinds of things and just go with the comedy, but still, these would have been pretty easy problems to fix. For instance, how much better would it have been if the measles misdiagnosis was somehow caused by some unnoticed screwup by Nurse Allen?
Anyway, on the whole, I enjoyed it, but it could've been better. The best bits may have been the quick, surreal, Airplane-esquire bits, such as the sinking of the naval ship, or the car on the fire-escape. Maybe with more of those, I wouldn't have even noticed the plot-holes.