This film should be remembered not as an early experiment in comedy but as the world's first psychodelic movie. I'm certain the person who thought up the dancing teacup number was floating a few feet off the ground at the time. (By the way, the reefer man wasn't playing bass; it was whoever put Baby Rose Marie and Cab Calloway on the same bill.) How else do you explain a movie that stars an actress playing herself, then her identity is never mentioned again? Come to think of it, why does a man fly to China and drive halfway across the desert to meet his fiancee? What was his fiancee doing in China? Why does Baby Rose Marie look like a twelve year-old and dress like a two year-old? What's with Bela Lugosi? Can a person sit on a batch of kittens for five full minutes without killing them? What's wrong with Gracie's brother? Is he the one who thought up the teacup number?
Now that I think of it, this film should be remembered as an early experiment in comedy. It's fast pace and complete disregard for plot would become standard for the great slob comedies of the 1970's, especially Caddyshack. The scenes of W.C. Fields tearing through International House spewing insults and sex jokes would be revived almost 50 years later by Rodney Dangerfield (even their names are alike.) Just substitute a midwestern country club for a Chinese hotel, a dim-witted caddy trying for a scholarship for a dim-witted groom trying to get married and Bill Murray for Gracie Allen and the two movies become indistinguishable. Of course Caddyshack doesn't have Bela Lugosi, but Ted Knight will do in a pinch.
Now that I think of it, this film should be remembered as an early experiment in comedy. It's fast pace and complete disregard for plot would become standard for the great slob comedies of the 1970's, especially Caddyshack. The scenes of W.C. Fields tearing through International House spewing insults and sex jokes would be revived almost 50 years later by Rodney Dangerfield (even their names are alike.) Just substitute a midwestern country club for a Chinese hotel, a dim-witted caddy trying for a scholarship for a dim-witted groom trying to get married and Bill Murray for Gracie Allen and the two movies become indistinguishable. Of course Caddyshack doesn't have Bela Lugosi, but Ted Knight will do in a pinch.