Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Fantastic!

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Other reviewers have explained the plot, so I'll simply tell you that I find this film funny and one of my top-rated movie comedies of all time (Blazing Saddles, Some Like it Hot, Olsen & Johnson's Hellzapoppin, Radio Parade of 1935, most of the film comedies starring Monty Python, Alastair Sim, Margaret Rutherford, Alec Guinness and almost all the classics by Chaplin, Keaton, Langdon, Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy, Marx Brothers, W. C. Fields, Mae West and Mel Brooks. During what seems in retrospect a scant decade following WWII, English language movies along with some stage plays, literature, network radio and early live television appealed to an American public better educated and verbally literate than generations before and after. In comedy of that fleeting era, there was frequently an absurdist streak and occasionally some commentary and deconstruction of the very medium in which it appeared. It's in the Bag is a good example of wit, absurdist comedy and deconstruction. An independent production built around the twin poles of a satiric Russian novel and acerbic comedian Fred Allen, it attracted co-stars willing to work for less than their usual salaries: Jack Benny, Binnie Barnes, Don Ameche, Robert Benchley, Rudy Vallee, Victor Moore, William Bendix, John Carradine, Sidney Toler and Jerry Colonna. The result is a series of scenes encountered by Fred Allen as he follows the trail of his missing chairs, one of which conceals a fortune. The script (written by Fred Allen, Morrie Ryskind, Lewis Foster, Jay Dratler & Alma Reville (Hitchcock's swife) is tight, clever, stuffed with incident and characters (most of them spoofing their on-screen personas). Directer Richard Wallace is efficient and compatible wirth the material and performers, and cinematographer Russell Metty was one of filmdom's finest and a favorite of Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick, Don Siegel and Stweven Spielberg.

War era radio audiences got a laugh or two out of the Fred Allen/Jack Benny feud, and in this, Allen's only sole-starring film, he gets to not only slam his chincy rival but go after a few other top celebrities as well. A distant uncle leaves Allen his estate and the down-on-his-luck flea circus owner must trace down five chairs (as opposed to Mel Brook's 12) to find it after the uncle is murdered. A slew of wacky characters and sketches get in his way which includes a Hollywood Bowl sized movie theatre without even a single seat available, a group of "has-beens" (Don Ameche, Rudy Vallee and Victor Moore) reduced to singing (along with Allen) in a barbershop quartet, William Bendix as a health-obsessed gangster (by the same name) and Jerry Colonna as a wacky doctor. The sketches come fast and furious, some really like the goose that laid the golden egg, others just laying there waiting to rot.Binnie Barnes is truly funny as Allen's put-upon wife with tons of wisecracks, Robert Benchley an inventor with a wacky mouse trap, and John Carradine as the uncle's sinister estate lawyer. The Benny sequence will have you in stitches and make you wish that there was more of him. Some of the humor seems truly fresh and original, others seem older than vaudeville. A true "popcorn" movie, you won't be disappointed, but you won't be sore from laughing too much, either.

The plot is so goofy that there is no need to make sense out of it. The self-deprecating humor that many of these performers show is one of the qualities that makes makes this film work. It's refreshing to see what real comedy was like before the present day comics started screaming filth at the public. Jack Benny was so funny. He had a way of laughing that makes me laugh just thinking about it. Nobody does that today. This little window to the past shows amazing wit. The delivery of the actors lines are quick and designed to leave the viewer in stitches from one scene to the next. Warner Oland was perfect as the inspector without the Charlie Chan guise which allowed him some very funny lines. John Carradine is fantastic as the crooked lawyer as well. This one is a personal favorite.

The fun starts with the credits as Fred Allen denigrates everyone listed with the exception of his co-stars Don Ameche, William Bendix and Rudy Vally. Jack Benny, supporting cast members, the producer, director and even the make-up artists get a blast from Allen's withering tongue. The plot is simple enough that we can kind of forget it while enjoying the comedic interludes that are woven around it. Good old fashioned slapstick comedy combined with the type of wit and highbrow comedy you'd expect from intellects like Fred and Robert Benchley. Any fan of Fred Allen's radio shows will appreciate this film. There is the delightful visit to Jack Benny's apartment (which costs Fred over $13.00) and even a visit with Allen's Alley denizen, Mrs. Nussbaum. The cameos are strange but interesting. There is wisecracking galore and one wonders just how much ad-libbing went on. The film is a fun glimpse at one of radio's greatest and most forgotten comedians. Is it a comedy classic? A cinematic masterpiece? No way. But it's a blast seeing Benny vs Allen, Benchley vs Allen and getting some belly laughs from the hilarity that unfolds. A keeper.