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From carnival to Manhattan, the noble art of ballyhoo. The barker (Lee Tracy) has a philosophy ("The world is greased with banana oil"), and a protégé in the hoochie-coochie dancer (Lupe Vélez) with a ribald ditty about a carpenter and a door knob. Not Hollywood but Broadway, "a better sap town than I thought," into the imperial suite with "Princess Exotica" out of Turkey. In no time they reach the lecherous impresario (Frank Morgan), "I must create a mood": Ziegfeld-style pageantry bores the audience, the production finally takes off when the wriggler's dress is drastically shortened and she launches into her signature number. (Max Steiner himself is in the orchestra pit, bouncing happily to the saucy rhythm.) Gregory La Cava at his swiftest, a vivacity of composition to keep up with Tracy's auctioneer patter. "A lousy racket" but a fun one, selling "electric fans to Eskimos, snowplows in Hawaii," sooner or later it leads right back to the sawdust. Achilles the sidekick (Eugene Pallette) contributes to the charade as a harem eunuch, which complicates his flirtation with the maid (Shirley Chambers). Tracy's hustle and Vélez's cayenne and Morgan's dither and Pallette's gravel, a rare joy. Sturges' lion for rental (The Sin of Harold Diddlebock), Edwards' nudist colony (A Shot in the Dark), above all the Tashlin of The Girl Can't Help It and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? The opening shot states the theme, an overhead view of a fairgrounds tank diver, whither the flim-flam man? "All pioneers are crazy until they die, then they get a monument." "Who wants a monument?" With Franklin Pangborn, Robert McKenzie, and Mary Mason. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |