I suppose if Gracie Allen can solve a murder, so can Edgar Bergen's splinter giving sidekicks. The plot of the criminal aspect of this mystery farce is more complicated than what one might expect, only sinking into mediocrity and silliness when Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd are on screen. It surrounds a crooked newspaperman (Louis Calhern) with mob ties, and a rival reporter (Robert Cummings) who helps to expose the rackets he's involved in. A bunch of unrelated or unimportant characters cone in and out to add to the list of suspects while Cummings aids frazzled detective Edgar Kennedy, but Bergen/McCarthy seem to be there mainly to frazzle him more. Ray Turner takes over the stereotypical roles usually played by Stepin Fetchit, Willie Best and Mantan Moreland, while Warren Hymer plays dumber than ever as one of the gang's thugs.
A couple of songs help this only slightly with pretty Constance Moore being pursued by Cummings. Everybody plays along with the fact that McCarthu and Mortimer are blocks of cut trees, never blinking an eye over that fact. Dressed like Universal's Sherlock Holmes, McCarthy does get one genuine laugh concerning a pair of split pants. This is such standard B movie fair that I was able to predict the arrival of character actor Charles lane on the scene, even though I had never seen this before. The painting of a nude woman with her buttocks exposed is the subject of an extended conversation, pretty surprising considering the code of the time. The mixture of intelligence in the writing of the serious storyline's nature and the juvenile take on Bergen and gang left me with a feeling of indifference to a film I've waited years to finally see.
A couple of songs help this only slightly with pretty Constance Moore being pursued by Cummings. Everybody plays along with the fact that McCarthu and Mortimer are blocks of cut trees, never blinking an eye over that fact. Dressed like Universal's Sherlock Holmes, McCarthy does get one genuine laugh concerning a pair of split pants. This is such standard B movie fair that I was able to predict the arrival of character actor Charles lane on the scene, even though I had never seen this before. The painting of a nude woman with her buttocks exposed is the subject of an extended conversation, pretty surprising considering the code of the time. The mixture of intelligence in the writing of the serious storyline's nature and the juvenile take on Bergen and gang left me with a feeling of indifference to a film I've waited years to finally see.