The Inspector General

Danny Kaye was a wonderful performer, he would sing, dance, tell jokes, turn his face into rubber and just generally come off as a quality humanitarian. The Inspector General showcases all of those talents.

Directed by Henry Koster, The Inspector General is loosely adapted from Nikolai Gogol's classic Russian story, and it finds Kaye as a stooge of Walter Slezak's iffy tonic peddler who is mistaken by iffy officials of a small Russian town for the much feared and respected Inspector General. Cue mistaken identity mayhem as the music numbers, gags, visual contortions and all round slapstick ensues. Also along for the ride are Elsa Lanchester, Alan Hale, Barbara Bates and Gene Lockhart.

It's more a safe and solid Kaye movie for the family to enjoy, rather than a high end classic like The Court Jester, but sometimes the high energy jinks of Kaye is all you need to lift the blues away. 7/10

A pleasant farce with a fine cast, "The Inspector General" gives Danny Kaye a chance to show off his many talents, and also tells a story that is quite humorous as long as you do not take it too seriously.

Kaye plays Georgi, an illiterate traveling huckster who helps his boss Yakov (Walter Slezak) sell useless medicines to gullible peasants. (The sequence where they try to sell their "elixir" is one of the movie's best scenes.) Georgi visits a small town, where through a series of coincidences, he is mistaken by the town's leaders for the Inspector General, an important official with sweeping powers to punish and reform. Half of the town fawns on him, while the other half panics over what he will discover in his "inspection". Kaye just wants to leave town before they figure out who he really is, but plenty of complications arise that keep things going for quite a while.

Kaye gets to sing, dance, and generally entertain the audience. The supporting cast is filled with fine character actors like Gene Lockhart, Elsa Lanchester, and Alan Hale, who add to the humor. Not a lot of big laughs, but a steady stream of good-natured comedy all the way through.

This is an enjoyable movie recommended for anyone who likes musical comedy.

Freely based on Nikolai Gogol's play , "The Inspector General" about a false Inspector who comes to examine a little corrupt town . It deals with an illiterate called Giorgi (Danny Kaye, able to tongue twist faster than anyone else) along with his boss (Walter Slezak) , both of whom are wandering and acting as medicine men into a provincial town wherein panic . Then Giorgi's detained for vagrancy charge but he's misidentified as a feared Inspector General who comes to check up on them and whom the corrupter town officers (the Mayor : Gene Lockhart married to Elsa Lanchaster and another officer played by Alan Hale) think is secretly moving in disguise . Later on , they make various bungled tryings to murder him . Meanwhile , Giorgi falls in love with a beautiful maid (Barbara Bates) who is serving to the Mayor.

The film is a Danny Kaye recital , he sings , dances , stooges , makes acrobatics , tongue twister and puts faces and grimaces . It's a pretty amusing farce suggested by a play by the Russian writer Gogol with the master comedy actor and it displays much choreography and musical numbers . Sylvia Fine , Kaye's wife , is the lyricist , composer , besides associate producer and dialogs writer , and responsible for many of the best known musical routines and songs for her husband . The best gags are developed on the Charles Chaplin imitations when Kaye is having lunch ; the events in the crowded room with several hosts that seem Marx brothers sketches ; in addition , the comic numbers in the military training headquarter . Support cast is frankly good , such as Elsa Lanchester , Barbara Bates , Gene Lockhart , Alan Hale , Néstor Paiva and Rhys Williams , among others . The motion picture was well directed by Henry Koster . Picture is a Kaye vehicle , and many consider his best comedy , he's an authentic comedian and real farceur . If you like Kaye's crazy interpretation , you will most definitely enjoy this one .

An illiterate stooge in a traveling medicine show wanders into a strange town and is picked up on a vagrancy charge. The town's corrupt officials mistake him for the inspector general whom they think is traveling in disguise. Fearing he will discover they've been pocketing tax money, they make several bungled attempts to kill him.

Unfortunately, this film is in the public domain and that means that Alpha Video seems to be the primary supplier. Maybe another version exists, but I saw the Alpha one. While it's not as bad as many public domain films, it has clearly aged and a new transfer would benefit the film greatly.

This film stands out as being a wonderful showcase for Danny Kaye. His best-known films (like "White Christmas") seem to have him more often as the sidekick. This film proves he can be a leading man in his own right, with plenty of humorous acting and some incredible singing. Kaye should be recognized as a bigger star than Bing Crosby.

This is a nice little bit of fluff. It has more Gogol in it than you might expect. It's not really tha-a-at good, but I gave it a 7 because it's *completely* harmless, and really, Danny Kaye is so lively and charming, and so few actors have that quality of total innocence. He looks quite handsome in the officer's fancy uniform (until he starts making with the funny faces). A good one for kids.