Diplomaniacs

"Diplomaniacs" is a funny, uneven and very politically incorrect film. It also happens to be one of Wheeler & Woolsey's better movies. It's also very, very unusual in many ways. There's even more singing than usual, cute Dorothy Lee (who is in nearly every one of the boys' films) isn't in this one, and it has a very, very dark ending...surprisingly dark for a comedy.

The story begins with the pair lamenting their opening up a barber shop on American Indian land. The natives don't have beards and don't need their services...but they do, for some inexplicable reason, want Willy and Hercules (Wheeler & Woolsey) to represent them at the Geneva peace conference. After all, they wonder why the Indian nation isn't being represented and they want peace. However, a baddie (Louis Calhern) is bent on preventing the pair from addressing the conference, as he wants war...though they never really say why!

The film is, like "Duck Soup" from the Marx Brothers (which debuted a few months later), a film that is actually deadly serious. It makes fun of the peace conferences of the day because they pointed out that these conferences really achieved nothing to protect mankind...and the film even ends on a very, very dark note. In many ways, it's very intelligent in addressing this YET it also is very dopey and filled with tons of jokes...many of which fall a bit bit flat. It's also very unusual in that the film's dialog is often sung. Overall, a good film that occasionally misses the mark...but also often succeeds.

By the way, I need to address the proverbial elephant in the room with this film. It is filled with politically incorrect stuff that will horrify some viewers. Hugh Herbert plays a Chinese man, the American Indian tribesmen and sexy tribeswomen are ridiculous and the final scene at the peace conference is a giant black-face number!! It is offensive....a product of its times, of course! But, all in all, I still enjoyed it in spite of everything.

Also, do NOT freak out at the swastikas in the opening credits. American Indians (as well as Asians) used the symbol for many, many, many years before the Nazis ever began in Germany....and it's not meant as a Nazi reference.

Wheeler & Woolsey have been about as ill-used & forgotten as Shakespeare's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern from the play Hamlet. In the abyss of the Great Depression our country turned to its clowns for solace and distraction from calamity. They did not disappoint us, keeping us howling with mirth lest we howl with despair. In return a grateful nation has given most of them an icon sheen, reviving their films, putting their visage on posters & t-shirts, and encouraging savants, pedants, and just plain journalists, to turn their histories into myths, and their myths into history. All of them, it seems, but Wheeler & Woolsey. These two fine cuckoos have been relegated to the basement of the Museum of Comedy. Their movie Diplomaniacs shows them to be sassy, musical and self-aware comics of the first water. So why is their memory as dead as the Firestone tire? Because the American public and its media minions insist on a simplistic & single view of our great clowns. No ambiguity need apply, seems to be the sign posted on the windows of our souls. Con man & boozer? Why that's W.C. Fields, only. Wisecracker? Groucho! Silly silent girl chaser? Harpo! Wistful vagabond? Only Chaplin. We have forgotten, or never knew, that there is a common gene pool for all great clowns and their comedy. Stan Laurel chased girls in early L & H ventures. Harold Lloyd portrayed a homeless stumblebum before inventing his glass character. And so it goes. Wheeler & Woolsey practised well and wisely the common foibles of the great-hearted boobies -- they drank to excess, warbled irreverent ditties, ogled the girls, and cracked wise at the drop of a pun. But they never got a RESERVED spot in the Hollywood parking lot. Groucho, Buster, each of you can make a little room for 'em, can't you? Your brother fools? Maybe Hollywood can even make amends by filming THE WHEELER & WOOLSEY STORY, with Jim Carrey & Steve Martin. I'd pony up the bucks for that!

DIPLOMANIACS is a really really funny 1933 film drawing happy comparison to Marx Bros and Euro-operetta farces of the Depression era. Deliberately as silly as possible with every race stereotype copping a hilarious racist pre code raspberry... even the squadron of French maids who un dress W&W out of their nighties and into hideous check streetwear and stovepipe hats. Everyone cops it and every character is playing unrestrained lunacy to the hilt. Instead of me carrying on about it, make sure you read the 'moviediva' link in the external comments panel along with the very informative other comments here. There is a wealth of information and insight into this forgotten but genuinely hilarious comedy team who seemed to toss very camp humor, cross dressing, insults, demented songs and skirt chasing into every conceivable mix in all their films. I have managed to see about 7 of their films and this so far is the best, fastest and outrageous. They often screen on late night TV in Australia where one channel seems to have almost every RKO pic from 1929-1946. DIPLOMANIACS has a terrific cast and a strong music score. I also love the Monogram pic of 1934 KING KELLY OF THE USA which joins this and DUCK SOUP with MILLION DOLLAR LEGS which you can read all about in other comments and the moviediva link. Enjoy!

Wheeler and Woolsey made a ton of these silly, ridiculous films in the early 1930s. SOoooo many one liners... two liners. typical wheeler and woolsey puns and jokes. They have set up shop near an indian reservation, and get caught up in the politics -- the tribe wants to be part of the Geneva convention, so they get Willy and Hercules (Wheeler and Woolsey) to help them out. There are a bunch of (very okay) song and dance numbers in here, and some special effects as well. This was a typical Wheeler and Woolsey film, with quick comedy bits, and all over in about an hour. Vaudeville funny guy Hugh Herbert is also in here as "the chinaman". Fast talkin, jokes and slapstick falls. Fun, light fluffy stuff, if you don't take it too seriously. Woolsey died quite young, but Wheeler carried on. warning -- right near the end, there's a minstrel show, where everyone wears blackface, but it was a real part of entertainment history, so i guess that's why we don't see this film too often. and there actually WAS a Geneva convention discussion on war and treatment of prisoners in 1929. Directed by William Seiter, and written by Joseph Mankowicz. Pretty good. some fun jokes, and a tidbit of actual history.

"Diplomaniacs" certainly lives up to its daft title and this movie probably was one of the silliest of the Wheeler and Woolsey collaborations in the 1930s. The boys find themselves this time uprooted from their Indian reservation barber's shop (where the Indians don't need shaving and only ever seem to say 'oompah', that is, except the Chief who went to Oxford), and sent to stop all wars at the Geneva Peace Conference.

Cue a swipe at every possible stereotype concerning the various peoples and countries of the world, from the Chinaman who wants to return to his wife, who he hates; to the Swiss national costume (don't ask), and even a number, 'No More War', in blackface! And Robert Woolsey even surfaces from sleep with a cigar; the guy must have gone through hundreds of them...

The songs, more of them than usual for one of their movies, are high points amongst the bizarre plot (including one sequence where Bert Wheeler recreates his old vaudeville act with 'Annie Laurie'). In support, Phyllis Barry is a hoot as smoke-breathing siren Fifi, while Marjorie White sizzles as Bert's violent love interest (brilliant number for them in 'Sing to Me'). Louis Calhern and Hugh Herbert also appear.

I know that this movie in particular annoys some commentators who see it as politically incorrect, but viewed in the context of the time, and accepting its mischevious spirit, it has enough good points to keep it watchable today. An excellent comedy classic!