You Said a Mouthful

Lowly shipping clerk Joe Holt (Joe E. Brown) gets bullied at work. He inherits an estate from his rich aunt Minnie but it's all vanished. He does gain a ward in Sam Wellington, the son of her loyal servant. They end up homeless and jobless. Alice Brandon (Ginger Rogers) spots him in the harbor to Catalina Island. She mistakes him for a different Joe Holt. The water-phobic Joe is assumed to be the swimming champion Joe Holt and is expected to compete in a swimming race. Macho Ed Dover challenges him and Alice is desperate for him to beat Dover.

Joe E. Born has his gaping mouth and facial comedy. The premise is functional screwball comedy. It doesn't really make sense that he gets up after coming up with his great injury excuse. It would take a lot more to get a rise out of him. It would take Ginger Rogers sexing it up. This is pre-Code after all. The premise loses steam over time. This is fine but nothing that great.

A penniless inventor is mistaken for a Canadian swimming champ and swept into competing in a swimming race from Santa Catalina Island to the California mainland.

YOU SAID A MOUTHFUL gave rubber-faced comic Joe E. Brown a fine vehicle to show off his talents. Whether he's attempting to demonstrate his unsinkable bathing suit, trying to learn to swim in an ornate bathtub or encountering numerous difficulties on the 22-mile aquatic contest, Brown is never less than hilarious. Here, he is given fine support by perky, pretty Ginger Rogers, who lends her special magic to light up the screen.

OUR GANG's Allen ‘Farina' Hoskins proves a good sidekick for Brown; this would be one of his last significant film roles. Preston Foster plays Brown's romantic rival; movie mavens will recognize an uncredited Guinn ‘Big Boy' Williams as the hapless real swim champ.

Actual location filming at Avalon on beautiful Catalina Island greatly adds to the ambiance of the picture.

"You Said a Mouthful" is a very odd comedy, as you are expected to root for a guy who is a complete fraud and a liar! Strange, but true!

When the story begins, Joe (Joe E. Brown) is fired from the company where he invented an unsinkable bathing suit. Soon, he learns he's the heir to an estate...but ends up gaining only $5 and a new son, Sam (Farina Hoskins). Soon the pair are destitute and Joe needs a job...when he is mistaken for a Canadian swimming champion bound for a big race at Catalina Island. Instead of admitting the mistake, Joe goes along with it and soon falls for Alice (Ginger Rogers). So what will he do when the race day finally arrives? Well, he'll do what any hero would do...cheat, cheat and cheat some more!

The message in this film is twisted if you think about it. Lie and cheat...that's the secret to success in this movie!! But if you can ignore this, the film is pleasant and enjoyable...and Farina (from the Little Rascals) is a nice sidekick for Joe and it's nice that the expected black jokes did NOT occur in the film. Overall, worth seeing even with a strange moral!

Joe E. Brown comedy about an inventor of an "unsinkable bathing suit" who is mistaken for a champion swimmer. Ginger Rogers plays the girl who falls for him but doesn't know the truth. Black child actor Allen 'Farina' Hoskins is great as Brown's ward he inherited from his aunt. I'm not the biggest fan of Joe E. Brown. I often find him to be a very limited comedian, relying solely upon rubberfacing and exaggerated voices -- the kind of stuff that toddlers laugh at. But every once in awhile I come across one of his movies that impresses me. This is one of those movies. Brown actually plays a character here instead of himself, which means he actually acts. My favorite parts were the little bits of business where we'd get to hear Brown's thoughts, which sound like lines from a bad novel. Fans of Brown will undoubtedly like this one but it's also one of his few movies I've seen that I would recommend to non-fans.

This is neither the best or worst thing Joe E. Brown ever did. It was made during his "salad days" over at Warner Brothers/First National where he did his best talking picture work. Brown plays Joe Holt, a shipping clerk who invents an unsinkable bathing suit and dreams of better things as he is constantly hazed and disrespected by his fellow employees. He soon learns he has inherited the estate of a relative in California. However, all he winds up with is five dollars and a young ward, played by Farina of Our Gang fame. Joe's luck soon turns, though, when he is mistaken for a championship swimmer by the same name. Deathly afraid of water, our hero would have confessed the mix-up to his hosts immediately if it were not for two things - the good eats at his hosts' comfy estate and, more importantly, the attention of an attractive young lady, Alice (Ginger Rogers), who just adores good swimmers.

The film has some good Joe E. Brown moments in it, who in many ways had the kind of early talkie career that Buster Keaton could have had if he had not been tied to a studio that so misunderstood his potential (MGM). MGM's forte was drama not comedy, and certainly not physical comedy. Ginger Rogers is in a transitional role here, as she is playing someone who is splitting the difference between her earlier flapper persona and her more hardened chorine image in the Berkeley musicals. Farina does a good job as Joe's ward and the only real friend Joe has. Preston Foster, as Joe's rival for both the championship and Alice, bears a striking resemblance to Ralph Bellamy both physically and in how Bellamy played the cad in some of his earlier screen roles.

A good film from the precode era that doesn't have a precode moment in it, which is odd considering its stars.