Simply A Masterpiece

Load of rubbish!!

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

I like Red Skelton films. However, they're certainly not all alike. His best are films where he's the star and nothing else. But since MGM was the studio of the big musicals as well, often he was placed in musicals...with mostly second-rate results. I have nothing against musicals....but when you are making a comedy, let the comedian do his schtick and don't distract the audience with songs. And, unfortunately, this one also has a bit of Esther Williams' swimming...and so Skelton isn't exactly the sole focus of the movie.Cornie (Skelton) and Debbie (Esther Williams) work at a carnival. One day, a super-rich Texan, Dan Sabinas (Keenan Wynn) arrives and takes an instant liking to Cornie and invites him to a big party he's throwing. Unfortunately, Dan is dead drunk and has no recollection of doing this...but Cornie takes him at his word and brings Debbie with him to Texas for the party. Through a case of mistaken identity, the pair are mistaken for Dan and his sister--and soon everyone is making over them like they are rich millionaires. Insanely, the pair decide to play along...and ultimately get into all sorts of trouble. The worst part is that Red accidentally loses $17,000 in a poker game that lasts about 30 seconds...and he cannot possibly pay. How can he extricate himself from this huge mess? And, what will Debbie do when a man (Howard Keel) has fallen from her and it appears that he thinks she is Dan's sister!While the plot sounds pretty funny it suffers from three problems. The first I mentioned above--singing and swimming that get in the way of the comedy. The second is that the ending is incredibly ludicrous with everything working out just fine...almost as if an intertitle card popped up and said "Ignore the mess they've gotten into....PRESTO...it's gone". Third, and the previous two problems contribute to this, is that it just isn't a particularly funny film. Agreeable but nothing more.

Flimsy MGM musical that skates by on the charm of its stars. Red Skelton and Esther Williams play a couple of carnival performers who are mistaken for a Texas millionaire and his sister. Skelton rolls with it and winds up getting into trouble over a lost bet while Esther finds herself falling for cowboy Howard Keel. Red's fun but the script isn't that hot. Esther is gorgeous as ever and has good chemistry with Skelton and Keel. This is the last of five pictures she did with Red. Ann Miller's also in this and seems to be having the most fun of anybody. The songs are forgettable. Howard Keel sings to his horse. Yeah, it's like that. Not one of Esther or Red's best but watchable and pleasant enough to pass the time.

This tired MGM musical would have been better if more productions values were lavished on this. Most musicals don't make much sense, and this one even more so. Mistaken identities could be funny, but this one isn't. This is really a vehicle for Red Skelton and he does his usual shtick...but sometimes too much of it. Easther has less to do as does Howard Keel. Ann Miller does well with her brief role. In fact the movie itself is brief. Barely and hour and 20 mins. Much seems to have been either left out or not filmed. The ending seems very rushed and a bit confusing. One thing doesn't make sense is when Esther asks Red for the keys to the car. He said it was damaged as he smashed it into a tree. Yet just two minutes earlier Esther sees drive up in same car!!!! Where was the damage? Just a few things that just don't make sense in this lackluster musical.

Penniless carnival barker Red Skelton and chorine-turned-dunking girl Esther Williams are mistaken for millionaires and are forced to enter a Chuck Wagon race to eradicate a gambling debt. Modest M-G-M comedy-musical filmed in Technicolor looks just as good as the studio's more-popular output--what was needed, however, was a screenplay with bigger laughs and stronger characterizations. Skelton juggles, sings, and performs some pleasing comedy shtick, but he's too polite here; director Charles Walters keeps Red reigned-in so much that a nutty drunk routine late in the movie seems out of place. Williams has a nifty fantasy number where she appears to pole-dance underwater (!), while Ann Miller has one great tap-dance sequence accompanied by a mad xylophone. Isolated moments of fun linked by the barest minimum of plot, though the wild slapstick finale nearly makes up for the picture's deficiencies. **1/2 from ****