Excuse My Dust (1951)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Roy Rowland

Writers:

Stephanie Nordli (writer)
George Wells (writer)

Release Date:

29 June 1951 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Musical

Plot:

Joe, inventor in an American Small town of 1895 has problems with his new invention, a car, driven with a gasoline motor...

Plot Keywords:

Inventor | Automobile

Cast

Red Skelton	...	Joe Belden
Sally Forrest	...	Liz Bullitt
Macdonald Carey	...	Cyrus Random, Jr.
William Demarest	...	Harvey Bullitt
Monica Lewis	...	Daisy Lou Shultzer
Raymond Walburn	...	Mayor Fred Haskell
Jane Darwell	...	Mrs. Belden
Lillian Bronson	...	Mrs. Matilda Bullitt
Herbert Anderson	...	Ben Parrott (as Guy Anderson)
Paul Harvey	...	Cyrus Random, Sr.
Marjorie Wood	...	Mrs. Cyrus Random Sr.
Scott Lee	...	Horace Antler
Alex Gerry	...	Mr. Antler
Jim Hayward	...	Nick Tosca
Will Wright	...	Race judge

Also Known As:

Mr. Belden's Amazing Gasmobile (USA) (reissue title)

Runtime:

USA:82 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:G | West Germany:6

Filming Locations:

San Francisco, California, USA

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

The automobile is the 1892 Philion Road Carriage. It is currently on display at the National Automobile Museum, The Harrah Collection in Reno, Nevada.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Story (1951)

First-Rate Second-Rate Musical

In reviewing the so-called golden age of the MGM musical, sometimes it's instructive to bypass the big, accomplished, but pretentious famous titles (An American In Paris, The Band Wagon, On the Town, Kismet) and skip to the smaller movies produced by someone other than Arthur Freed. This 1951 tuner from the Jack Cummings unit is probably Red Skelton's best movie, which may not be saying much, but it's a very smart and pleasing little musical that doesn't wear out its welcome (it's a trim 80 minutes or so). Red's dopey slapstick is kept to a minimum (just two set pieces, at the beginning and the end), and what's in between is surprisingly gentle and well-written Americana -- in sunny Technicolor. The underrated score, by Dorothy Fields and Arthur Schwartz (who wrote another wonderful score for Broadway that year, the equally underrated "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn"), is solidly integrated into the plot, and the musical staging, by Hermes Pan, is bright and inventive. (The movie contains what may be the least plot-motivated "dream ballet" ever, but even it's quick and unpretentious.) Sally Forrest is pretty as a picture and a heck of a dancer, and Monica Lewis socks two comedy numbers across. They will help you past the dum-dum physical comedy that was Skelton's stock in trade.

It's no award-winner, nor did it do much at the box office, but it holds up much better than some of the bigger, weightier MGM titles.