The Inspector General (1949)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Henry Koster

Writers:

Nikolai Gogol (play)
Harry Kurnitz (screenplay)

Release Date:

31 December 1949 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Musical

Plot:

An illiterate stooge in a traveling medicine show wanders into a strange town and is picked up on a vagrancy charge...

Plot Keywords:

Snake Oil | Medicine Show | Corruption | Deception | Impostor

Awards:

Won Golden Globe.

Cast

Danny Kaye	...	Georgi
Walter Slezak	...	Yakov Goury
Barbara Bates	...	Leza
Elsa Lanchester	...	Maria
Gene Lockhart	...	The Mayor
Alan Hale	...	Kovatch
Walter Catlett	...	Col. Castine
Rhys Williams	...	Inspector General

Also Known As:

Happy Times (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

102 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Iceland:L | Canada:G (Ontario) | Australia:G | Finland:S | USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Corriganville, Ray Corrigan Ranch, Simi Valley, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Goofs:

Continuity: When Yakov first reads the note from Leza we can see it says "They are trying to kill you. Don't go near the barn." Later, when the woodchopper reads it he says "Don't go near the barn. They are trying to kill you."

Quotes:

Georgi: [singing] Drink to me only wi-ith thine eye-eyes / And I will drink with my nose!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Hogan's Heroes: The Collector General (#3.27)" (1968)

Soundtrack:

Happy Times

Danny Kaye show with his particular talent as great comic about an issue of mistaken identities

An illiterate(Danny Kaye) along with his boss(Walter Slezak)are wandering and acting as medicine men into a provincial town wherein panic when he's detained as vagrancy charge but he's misidentified as a feared Inspector General who come to check up on them whom the corrupter officers town(the Mayor:Gene Lockhart and married with Elsa Lanchaster and the Officer:Alan Hale)think is secretly moving in disguise.Then they make various bungled tryings to murder him.Meanwhile he falls in love with a beautiful maid(Barbara Bates)who is serving to the Mayor.

The film is a Danny Kaye recital,he sings ,dances,stooges,makes acrobatics,tongue twister and pulls faces and grimaces.It's a farce with the master comic pretty amused and with several choreography and musical numbers. Silya Fine,Kaye's wife ,is the lyricist,composer,besides producer and dialogs writer, and responsible for many of the best known musical routines and songs for her husband. The best gags are developed on the Charles Chaplin imitations when Kaye is eating the lunch ;the events into the room with several hosts which seem Marx brothers sketches;plus the comic numbers into the military trainer quarter.The motion picture is accurately directed by Henry Koster. Picture is a vehicle Kaye,he's an authentic comic and real farceur.If you like Kaye's crazy interpretation ,you'll enjoy this one.