Mademoiselle ma femme

Bumbling regular guy Joseph Rivington Renolds (Red Skelton) has a crush on Broadway star Connie Shaw (Eleanor Powell) from afar. She has her wandering-eye co-star boyfriend Larry West, and rival Suretta Brenton. Out of spite and due to a misunderstanding, she marries Joe.

The kissing rivalry is a great meet-cute. The gold mine misunderstanding is less cute. The musical within the movie slows everything down with some exceptions. It is amazing to see Lena Horne perform. The comedy is a bit uneven with Red Skelton working hard to keep it going. It has some fun moments but not all the moments work.

This is a film in which the parts are definitely greater than the sum. I understand it was a remake of a Buster Keaton silent feature,so the slapstick is pretty funny. Also entertaining are Miss Powell's dance numbers (even if two of them were lifted from previous films) and the musical numbers by Hazel Scott and Lena Horne. Red Skelton is his usual bumbling, confused,but lovable self. But the film as a whole is just goofy. Besides the whole "mistaken identity" plot,there is a subplot about Nazi saboteurs,which is just stupid and some really bad spoof of "Gone With the Wind" as the play that Powell's character is starring in. I guess that during wartime, anything light hearted was quickly put together and rushed into theaters as a diversion. This film looks it.

Here is a perfect little film. It's full of laughs, music and Red Skelton. I've never been a Red Skelton fan but when I saw this film on TCM I was hooked. I couldn't stop watching. Between the music, the dancing, and slapstick I can't say which one was better. The other thing is the direction. It didn't seem like it was made almost 60 years ago. The camera moment is on par with correct Hollywood. To that end, it was better than current directors do. No MTV editing but good clean shots that flow from one shot to the next without as many edits. Now that's something I would love current Hollywood try. This is a gem of a movie.

I hope they paid Powell triple. That rope dance she does is maybe the most demanding gauntlet of timing I've seen in years of viewing. I'm not surprised the rehearsal for it "knocked herself out cold", (IMDB). Then too, she's got the movie's comedic highpoint where Skelton has to bend her upside down and sideways while she's knocked out with sleeping pills. And catch that climactic top-like spin in front of the mock battleship that had me dizzy for a week. To me, the movie's really her showcase. On the other hand, Red's routines pick up slapstick momentum toward the end, but the first part has him do little more than wear a goofy grin. As a Skelton fan, I don't think it's the comedian's best showcase.

On the whole, the 100-minutes amounts to a rather unwieldy package, with a few over-stretched routines and an awkward Nazi subplot. But then this is 1943 and everybody's got to do their part. Note, for example, how class differences—a pants presser vs. a Broadway star—are overcome, while Blacks are presented in a non- demeaning way. It's like we've all got to pull together to defeat the Axis. And catch that last sequence where Red battles the Nazi Hodiak. Judging from the screen environs, I'll bet it was filmed in MGM's prop room with the lifts, props and catwalks all doing their part.

Overall-- as another reviewer points out—it's more a movie of parts than a whole. But some of those parts are fairly memorable. Most of all, however, hats off to the fearless Elinor Powell.

I generally find Red Skelton films entertaining, so I poured a glass of wine and tee'd up "I Dood It" on a quiet Sunday afternoon.

Red Skelton was his usual great. I understand that Buster Keaton was his coach for some of the slapstick, and it showed. But one genius plus one genius equals some great comedy, so that was okay with me.

However, I was really blown away by three performers I didn't know very well. Eleanor Powell was a fine actress and a fantastic dancer. Check out her lasso dance near the beginning of the film. Absolutely amazing! And then later in the film comes Hazel Scott, a phenomenal jazz pianist who I'd never heard before. Then shortly thereafter we have Lena Horne in her powerful "Jericho" number. Those scenes alone make the movie worth spending a little time on.

There were a lot of musical numbers, too many in fact, and I have to admit I fast forwarded through the more tedious of them. And the plot was -- as many people have mentioned -- disjointed and illogical. But there's enough gold in this film to make it an enjoyable, although certainly not classic, movie event.