Kentucky Moonshine

A corny plot, a vapid romantic subplot, and the dullness of stars Tony Martin and Marjorie Weaver make the best parts of this film the Ritz Brothers specialty numbers, including a parody of Walt Disney's "Sleeping Beauty." Never have hillbillies been so roundly ridiculed as in this tale of sneaky New Yorkers trying to bamboozle their way onto a radio show.

As is often the case with comedies of the 30s and 40s, the filmmakers don't trust the comedians to carry the picture, so they add a romantic subplot and boring song or two to "help things out". It doesn't help here, as Tony Martin is not much of a leading man and has some boring songs to sing, however the madcap magic of the Ritz boys does win out in the end.

This movie starts with an interminably long Martin song, then you finally meet the Ritz Brothers, three guys trying to make it in showbusiness just when the hillbilly music craze is breaking. They catch wind of a talent search down south and decide to go down and pose as bumpkins to jumpstart their careers. This kind of thing probably happened in real life during the folk music boom of the 60s!

Great Harry Ritz line: (acting dumb as someone tries to explain the concept of a broadcast to him) "You mean they can take our voices on that there raddy-o and fling 'em all over tarnation?"

So, as usual, not ENOUGH Ritz Brothers in this, but they do get some good moments, the best (perhaps one of their finest sequences captured on film), is their routine at the end. Worth the wait. Phenomenal dancing. Just hilarious and entirely Ritz-ian.

Kentucky Moonshine gives the Brothers Ritz an opportunity to carry a film with star billing. Unfortunately they don't rise to the occasion and even Darryl Zanuck pads the film with young lovers Tony Martin and Marjorie Weaver.

In these programming decisions that are made sometime, radio executives are worried about band-leader/singer Tony Martin's slipping ratings. It seems there's a glut of swing music on the market. Tony gets the idea that maybe real hillbilly music and offers to go to the hills of Kentucky to find some real hillbilly acts.

Marjorie Weaver who's waiting outside a casting office gets wind of the scheme and goes back to Kentucky where she's actually from to be discovered. Her fellow boarders at a theatrical rooming house the Ritz Brothers go back to the hills of Eastern Kentucky with her though they'd really be more at home in the East New York section of Brooklyn.

Of course after a series of mishaps it all works out in the end. The last fifteen minutes or so of the film are exclusively the Ritz Brothers as they take over Martin's program with their usual brand of monkeyshines. Included in that is a Ritz dramatization of Snow White with bits of the Disney score that Mr. Zanuck probably had to shell out big bucks for.

The problem the Ritz Brothers have is that unlike the Three Stooges or the three Marx Brothers, the Ritzes themselves have no individual personality. There stuff at times can be funny and it's amusing here. But it's not the stuff classic comedy is made.

Tony Martin begins the film with a version of the Prologue from Pagliacci which was a hit for him and which he later sang in Two Tickets to Broadway. He was trying a mustache for this film which he promptly discarded. The rest of the musical score is singularly unoriginal.

I'm sure no one left the theater in 1938 when Kentucky Moonshine was showing with one of 20th Century Fox's A budget features. Still it's not likely to be discovered and herald a revival of the Ritz Brothers.

Darry Zannuck signed the Ritz Brothers when he saw them in a night club.One can only assume that he wanted them as a sort of challenge to the Marx Brothers.The trouble is that on their own the Ritz Brothers were simply not that funny.Individually and together the Marx Brothers were funny.The worst of their films is better than the best ritz brothers films.In this film i get the feeling that at times it becomes a bit like a 3 Stooges film but without the laughs.Having said that i do rather like the Ritz Brothers,and their imitations,dance and musical numbers at the end of the film at least end the film on a high.The rest of the film is rather dull and regardless of Tony Martin or Marjorie Weaver it is the Ritz brothers name above the title so they must take the blame if the film is not up to scratch.

Normally I go for the Sophia Loren type. But in this case Marjorie Weaver with her wholesome, "girl next door" looks was appealing to me.

This is a mindless comedy with some good entertainment from the Ritz brothers. We have Kentucky hillbillies interacting with sophisticated New Yorkers of the late 1930s. The movie was silly, but fun.