Hellzapoppin'!

You like Mel Brooks? You like Monty Python? You like movies where anything can happen and probably will? Good, 'cos that last bit was a line from Hellzapoppin'! which has good cause to be considered the Daddy of them all.

It was released around Xmas 1941, and shooting must have gone on pretty late because there are references to getting drafted and also to Citizen Kane. It was based on a revue which had been running on Broadway for the past couple of years, starring a couple of vaudevilleans called Ole Olsen and Chic Jonson. -

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t222/psionovore/0hell02.jpg

Oh look! There they are! (He groaned, so you don't have to.)

Anyhow, the big deal with this show is that total anarchy reigns. In particular, the critics raved about it for breaking down the 4th Wall, with performers walking off the stage and interacting with members of the audience. Now, Beaumont and Fletcher had played that trick with their The Knight Of The Burning Pestle 450 years earlier, but what would Broadway critics know of that?

Olsen and Jonson couldn't do the same thing on film, of course, but they tried their best, notably through an on-going dialogue with the cinema projectionist, played by Shemp Howard of 3 Stooges fame. Also they managed occasional dialogue with imaginary members of the cinema audience, notably one "Stinky Miller."

The show opens in Hell. Well, in a theatre doing Hell - the Musical in which a number of hornéd chorus boys dance around sticking pitchforks into well-stacked broads (kinky!). Then Olsen and Jonson arrive in a taxi, most inexplicably full of farmyard animals. (Gag: "That's the first time a cab driver ever went straight where I told him.") The further gag is that the cab driver is a midget who's magicked into a jockey who then flies off into space . . . I didn't say it would make sense.

After a while we move to a weekend party at a mansion in Long Island, in which there's a sort of plot about boy meets girl, but no one notices. There is however the presence of Martha Ray -

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t222/psionovore/0hell01.jpg


- a well-built lady with a loud laugh and a mouth designed for eating bananas sideways, who at one point gets to sing "Watch The Birdie", and Mischa Auer -

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t222/psionovore/0hell06.jpg

- as a (possibly) Russian Prince. Don't worry. They've nothing to do with the plot. There's also Hugh Herbert (sorry I couldn't find a photo) as a House Detective who's also a magician. He giggles a lot, and it's a tribute to the speed at which the movie moves along that he didn't get me irritated.

That's about it, really.

No, it's not.

There's a lot of Swing Dancing by some individuals called Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, who I gather are still well regarded by those who regard such things well. Also the screenplay (it seems there was one) was written by Nat Perrin, who also penned such masterpieces as Blondie Goes To College but is best known for producing The Addams Family on TV in the 60s.

This is a film worth seeing. In my opinion, not a film worth paying to see, and if any of you part with a plugged nickel for the privilege, please don't come crying to me. Olsen and Jonson are not the most endearing of double-acts, a little of Martha Raye goes a long way (and there's a lot of her), some of the jokes are overdone, and the section where O&J sabotage a stage show is fifteen minutes of nothing very much. They salvage things later with a bit of partial invisibility (I said it didn't make sense.)

Nevertheless, this is a seminal movie with a lot going for it. I shall say no more. You have been warned.

Sounds right up my alley, and I just don't ever remember seeing it, and I know I wouldn't/couldn't forget this. Hopefully I can find it and watch it.
What a great review Byron.

Martha Ray was pretty hot stuff in her youth.

I remember seeing this on Tv one Sunday afternoon when I was a kid. I remember thinking it was all very funny without having a clue what was going on.

If I recall Frankenstein's monster turns up at some point!

Also I remember it because a few years later I got very into 'Speedway racing' (http://www.speedwaybikes.com/tracks/images/JasonB_Pic04_lg.jpg) and for a while the World Speedway Champion was a Swede called Ole Olsen! (http://www.newcastlespeedwayhistory.co.uk/Ole%20Olsen%20World%20Champ%201975.jpg)

Concerning Frankenstein's Monster, he does indeed make an entrance.

in The Goodies' episode The Movies, he turns up again to precisely the opposite effect, suggesting that Graeme, Tim and Bill had also seen the film.