That dance sequence in the middle is the best I've ever seen. My reaction to this is oddly the same as Lubitsch's Heaven Can Wait; the hell sequences that bookended the films showed more potential than the story they enter into. Still, this thing was crazy and most of the humour is still funny.

Universal's 1941 paean to chaos theory.

#767

A delicious travesty of Hollywood and musicals, the mischievous, batshit insane cousin of Un Chien Andalou (1929) that only cares about sticking its tongue out at the viewer and violent slapstick, and the father of Airplane! and Blazing Saddles, which takes the piss out of cinema and yet manages to be a tribute to it as a life affirming art.

At least half of the humor in this movie is terrible. But man, you have to admire the sheer anarchy of it. This is the Marx Brothers times Looney Tunes times a hundred. And to be fair, some of the jokes are pretty good. What really saves this movie from all the bad comedy is the song and dance, all of which I thought was terrific. Highlights are "Watch the Birdie", the jazz number and the Busby Berkeley tribute. As much as I hated a lot of the jokes, the overall experience is a hoot.

572

# 741

The film is amusing and has some great gags, and you have to give it credit for what was probably some daring stuff for its time. Even so, beyond its originality there's nothing that great here. Everything has been done better elsewhere and it's one of those movies that's constantly moving at a manic pace and yet still feels rather slow; They're constantly throwing jokes out and a lot of them miss, but enough of them work that you're still amused.

I imagine this was a delightful slice of escapism for people that were getting bored with the Studio System approach. Endearingly wacky and all, but so is watching an ordinary movie at twice the speed, and that's about how resonant the humor is.

587

This is 'Duck Amuck' meets the Marx Brothers. Very meta and original and reasonably entertaining. Even though they are decidedly hit and miss - and at times off-the-wall weird - the high rate of jokes per minute is unbelievable.