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

I loved it as a kid and i love it even more now. This is a classic movie about mistaken identity, which inspired so many later movies. A tramp (Danny Kaye) is mistaken for the Inspector General by the corrupt mayor and his equally corrupt officials.

I find Danny Kaye one of the best performers of our times and he has given one of his best performances here. Look at him rolling like a dog (a scene so touching) or imitating a fish in the beginning or singing 'drink gypsy' later on. An institution in himself. The movie can be hilarious, very touching, delightful and thrilling at the same time. It's a treasure.

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.

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.

Danny Kaye's films with Samuel Goldwyn established him as a leading movie comedian - singer from 1944 through the late 1940s. For a number of years after he continued his popularity without Goldwyn in films like "Knock on Wood", "The Court Jester" and "Merry Andrew". It is likely that "The Court Jester" is his best film, but "The Inspector General" is close to the top.

Based on a 19th Century satiric play by Nicolai Gogol, Kaye plays Georgi, a decent fellow who works for the bullying Yakov (Walter Slezak). Yakov and Georgi travel around the countryside selling "Yakov's elixir" which is supposed to cure all kinds of illnesses (that Kaye sings in a tongue-twisting song by Sylvia Fine, his wife). But they are forced to flee when Georgi tries to stop an elderly woman from wasting her money on the elixir. Naturally Yakov is upset, and sends Georgi away until he learns to be crooked. Yakov has been using a fake official document signed by Napoleon as a come on in his sales pitch. Georgi is carrying it. He is arrested by the town constable (Alan Hale Sr.) for vagrancy, but the latter reads the letter. As the Mayor (Gene Lockhart) and his cohorts are awaiting (with dread) a visit by Napoleon's Inspector General to check their records (they have been feathering their nests), they think that Georgi is this Inspector General. When Yakov comes to town he quickly grasps the situation, and pretends he is the "Inspector's" servant. Slezak knows that there are real opportunities here.

The funny thing is that Gogol's play is not quite like the film. First of all, Gogol was writing a critique of government corruption in the Russian Empire under Tsar Nicholas I (1825-1855). Gogol was a religious mystic and satirist (best recalled for his unfinished novel about serfdom, "Dead Souls", and his novellas "The Diary of a Madman" and "The Overcoat"). Normally Nicholas was a humorless despot, who hated intellectuals. But he liked THE INSPECTOR GENERAL, which attacked the worst aspects of Russian local government corruptions that the Tsar did want to see eradicated. Because he approved, the play was a great success, and became one of the few 19th Century plays that became part of the permanent world repertory.

But Gogol's targets were Russian, not French. Napoleon is not a background figure in the play. The Inspector General (actually the title is "The Government Inspector" in Russian) is from the Tsar. They have heard rumors of the corrupt practices, and are checking them. Georgi's character is not such a well-intentioned type in the play as he is in the movie. He is as willing to feather his nest as Yakob is, and they prove to be a highly successful team.

This is because the Mayor and his cohorts are quite willing to bribe their way out of the current investigation. This includes selling the Mayor's wife for sex, and paying out much in bribes and "gifts". And in the end, after "Georgi" and Yakob leave with their loot, the Mayor thinks he will be called to St. Petersburg for some really important post. But months later they hear of a letter circulating in the capital from "Georgi" boasting of how he fooled the Mayor and his cohorts. Then, just as things couldn't get worse, a servant announces the arrival of "a Government Inspector" to review the books. Everyone freezes in terror as the curtain falls.

The film softens "Georgi's" character, leaving Yakov as the greedy one (although Slezak does redeem himself at the end). The Mayor and his cohorts (who do things like collecting for a church bell but pocketing the money themselves) do try to kill off the Inspector General - there is a funny sequence at a party where "Georgi" sings a song about "sing Gypsy, dance Gypsy", and keeps on just avoiding drinking his doctored drink during the song. Georgi's guardian angel protects him. He also meets Leza, a servant (Barbara Bates) and falls for her. He debates how to appear before her as a General - should he be elegant like an Englishman, arrogant like a Russian, or smart like a German. In some ways "Soliloquy for Three heads" may be the best of the numbers in the film.

Although watered down from Gogol's stunning comic play, enough entertainment value remains in the film to make it worthwhile viewing, and a highpoint in appreciating Kaye's movie career.