It's in the Bag!

I was surprised by the quality of the writing in this forgotten exhibition of the comic talents of radio personality Fred Allen. The story is one of those madcap farces in which a virtually non-existent plot is held together by a relentless barrage of jokes and quips which, for a change, hit more often than they miss.

Allen plays Fred F. Trumble Floogle, the penniless owner of a flea circus who unexpectedly comes into an inheritance when a distant relative is murdered. What Fred doesn't realise is that most of the fortune has already been siphoned off by crooked lawyer John Carradine and his cronies, and the few hundred thousand dollars that remains is hidden in one of a set of five chairs that have been sold at auction. There then follows a fast paced hunt for the missing chairs that leads Floogle into the paths of all manner of unusual characters. One of these is Jack Benny, and the film has a great time poking fun at his legendary stinginess. Two of the chairs have been sold to a nightclub where Floogle finds former stars Don Ameche, Rudy Vallee and Victor Moore working (Ameche has run out of things to invent in the movies so is reduced to working as a singing waiter to make ends meet.)

The story continues in this vein for ninety minutes, but very rarely does the pace – or quality of the jokes – flag. Others have pointed out that many of the gags will be lost on those with no – or little – knowledge of the period, but there's still plenty of timeless jokes that still work today.

For anyone who is considering a career as a comedian, It's In The Bag should be required viewing. For the rest of us it gives us many laughs and it's the one and only opportunity to see Fred Allen's talents on full display.

Allen's brand of absurdist humor has influenced so many people right down to today. You can see traces of his influence in Rowan&Martin's Laugh-In, the Mighty Carson Art Players from the Tonight Show and even Monty Python's Flying Circus and may be most of all the work of Mel Brooks on the screen. Because the cinema of necessity a tightly controlled script is in order, one aspect of Allen you don't see was his quick wit with an ad-lib. Some even consider him faster with a quip than Groucho Marx.

The premise for this film is that Fred is the financially strapped owner of a flea circus, owing everybody in town including bookie Ben Welden and barely supporting wife Binnie Barnes and children Gloria Pope and Richard Tyler. A long unheard of uncle however is murdered and the uncle left Allen a set of five chairs.

Our genius of a hero sells them off before a phonograph record from his late uncle tells him that $300,000.00 is hidden in one of the chairs together with clues as to who murdered him. Of course the perpetrators are shadowing Allen's every move as he seeks to retrieve the chairs from their new owners and find his fortune in the lining.

The whole thing is an excuse for several skits as Allen goes on his quest for the chairs. One of the chairs was sold to Minerva Pious who is Mrs. Nussbaum and a regular on Allen's radio show. She happened to sell the chair to one Jack Benny.

Benny's character as a miser has become so ingrained in the American culture that even today people who've heard the name know that about him and can appreciate the cheap jokes. What they might not realize is that Jack Benny and Fred Allen engaged in one of the great famous radio feuds so that dimension of the scene with Fred Allen might be lost.

Another couple of chairs goes to a nightclub where folks like Don Ameche, Rudy Vallee, and Victor Moore are picking up some extra money as singing waiters. Another goes to William Bendix, head of the criminal Bendix gang. Bendix is terrific burlesquing his own tough guy image and John Carradine who played many a sinister role on screen looks like he's having a ball playing a crooked lawyer.

Even Jerry Colonna is in this film, on loan from Bob Hope's radio show playing a zany psychiatrist. There is so much in It's In The Bag packed into less than 90 minutes you can hardly stop for breath.

This film is a rare comic treat and should never be missed when broadcast. Demand TCM acquire this film and broadcast it.

Well, actually more like an "Uncle Scrooge" adventure turned into a movie, with acerbic Fred Allen subbing for Carl Barks' peripatetic miser, running into, across and over a panoply of bizarre characters in search of (what else, Uncle Scrooge?) a lost fortune. "Bag" offers the usual Barks-type exotic locales -- there's a byzantine movie theater that seems deliberately Disney-esque -- and colorful characters, here embodied by some surprising Hollywood figures (Rudy Vallee, Don Ameche, Jerry Colonna, etc,)The inevitable encounter with jack Benny is funny enough, but my favorite cameo here was etched by John Carradine as an organ-playing arch-villain, complete with cape and top-hat. Not to be missed!

"It's in the Bag" is pretty obscure, but it's very funny. I am a big fan of old radio comedy shows, and thus was interested in seeing Jack Benny, Fred Allen, and other OTR personalities in a movie. Jerry Colonna as a nutty psychiatrist is the funniest role in the movie. Lots of good typical one-liners from Allen, and the opening, featuring Allen making sarcastic comments about the credits as they appear on the screen, was, I presume, a very original idea for a 1940s movie. If your local video store has this movie and you want some good laughs, check this one out.

Fred Allen was--with the possible exception of his "rival" Jack Benny--the biggest star in the history of radio. He was Letterman to Benny's Leno--an acerbic smartaleck who practically invented topical humor/current political events satire. While he had numerous small film roles and cameos (and later starred in TV's "What's My Line?"), "It's In The Bag" was Fred Allen's only starring role in a motion picture, and it was a good one.

The plot--Allen gaining, then losing, then frantically trying to recover an inheritance hidden inside one or more mystery chairs--is just a skeleton on which to hang the movie's wry jokes, strange interludes and satirical jabs at Hollywood stars. A trainload of radio and film comedians appear in this movie, including Jack Benny (with whom Allen shared a longtime "feud" that was as successful--and as manufactured--as anything the World Wrestling federation ever produced). Author and bon vivant Robert Benchley makes a strong appearance here, and Richard Wallace's steady direction manages to keep up with the comic mayhem.

Allen's irreverent humor, wild tangents and complete disregard for film conventions (including the sacred fourth wall) inspired Mel Brooks, who, drawing from its source material, made a version of "It's In The Bag" as his second feature, "The Twelve Chairs"--although literary purists who love the original darkly satiric Russian novel by Ilf and Petrov, take note: you will likely hate both these movies with a fiery passion. Even faithful Russian screen adaptations of that extraordinary book have failed to capture its greatness, and "It's In The Bag" doesn't even try--it's merely a sardonically humorous sendup of 1940s Hollywood in general and Mr. Allen in particular. It's no intricate Russian literary classic, but if you love vintage Hollywood comedies with an edge, you won't be disappointed.