Boris Karloff. Bela Lugosi. Peter Lorre. Three
of the great horror icons of films. All together. So sit back and get ready
to take a big bite out of a . . . musical comedy. Yup. And it's not
as bad as you might think. Think Abbott and Costello and all their Meet movies
- just without Abbott or Costello. Of course this came out long before those
films. Instead Kay Kyser and Dennis O'Keefe. Huh? Kay Kyser may be vaguely
familiar to a few big band fans but back in the 1930's and 40s he was hugely
popular. He had a radio show called Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge
in which his band played music and he had contestants on to answer questions
and name that tune. The film begins with that. He inserted a lot of dimwitted
comedy into his show but in fact gathered a lot of talent over the years -
Ginny Simms, Harry Babbitt, Merwyn Bogue, Sully Mason - were all highly regarded
and appear in the film as themselves. Also Mike Douglas who does not. Simms
is a wonderful vocalist. I think they have about five musical numbers all
laced with some goofy humor. One number in particular is almost worthy of
the Marx Brothers it is so absurd.
This is a really old fashioned film. Covered in cobwebs from another era
when this style of comedy went over well. When as soon as one of the characters
says don't make any noise, you know someone will trip over something creating
a bang. When a film breaks out into music and the crowd loves it. When a dog
picks up a stick of dynamite ready to go off and follows everyone around the
room as they run away from it. There were not that many laughs but its genial
pleasantness won me over to some degree. Kyser is about as far from charismatic
as you can go without falling off a cliff - but he will do. He made a few
other films as well that I actually want to see. Shoot me now.
Oh. Karloff, Lugosi and Lorre. They actually have good sized parts in the
film. They are all trying to kill the the young heiress back from school so
that they can continue to cheat the loony aunt out of her money. She lives
in a creepy giant house full of deadly weapons that were brought back from
Africa and a hidden door anywhere you can think. They all play versions of
their characters from many films. Lugosi is a mystic with a turban performing
seances for the old lady, Lorre fully utilizes his bulging dead eyes, smirking
mouth and with a cigarette that I swear gets longer in every scene hanging
out of his mouth like a fourth rate gigolo and Karloff just seethes menace
as he could do with a simple look. Their attempts to kill her are quite serious
and add a dash of suspense to the film. Going in all I knew was that
the big three were in it - so it came as a surprise when it opens with Kyser
leading the band - but once adjusted to it - it was silly fun. I am always
fascinated by films that were popular and now seem so out of date. How we
have changed. Up on Youtube.
