gavin6942 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.

david-sarkies I had just finished reading the play by the Ukranian playwright Nicolae Gogol and I decided that I would have a look through Youtube to find out if somebody had uploaded a performance but what my search ended up throwing up me was, well, this movie (and I believe that it may be public domain since it is up of Youtube, and if a movie is not public domain, or not allowed on Youtube then I suspect that it will be pulled down pretty quickly). The play is about how a group of corrupt officials on a small Russian town in the 19th century hear that somebody is coming from St Petersburg (the then Russian capital) to perform a audit on the town's accounts, so they end up rushing about in a panic to try and cover up their nefarious deeds. Then enters a lowly clerk on a holiday and they immediately believe that he is the auditor and go out of their way to soften him up and offer him bribes.The movie differs from a play a little (and is a little be more slapstick, but then again I have not seen it performed so I cannot comment on that aspect of it) in that the clerk is replaced by an out of work con-man (because he does not like deceiving people) and the play has a much happier ending. In fact the clerk in this film is a much more honest individual than the original in the play (who scampers out of town quick fast when he is discovered). Also, the clerk (for want of a better word because in the movie he is actually homeless and destitute and wonders into the town having not eaten for two days).The movie is also set in some vague European Village in some vague empire because at one point it is suggested that the Emperor if Napoleon, and at another point it is said that the capital city is Budapest (which is a huge continuity error because Budapest was never the main capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and Napoleon never had his capital in Budapest (he was French, so it was always going to be Paris). However, putting aside that minor problem, and the fact that the main character is much, much nicer in this movie than in the play, it is still a pretty good rendition, and enjoyable to watch.

CEdWright Danny Kaye appealed most to our parents'/grandparents' generation, with their better appreciation of the often inane humor that entertainers like Danny Kaye provided: Overplayed, with sight or sound gags milked for all they're worth and then some. It was an easier, simpler time for entertainers, when slapstick was king and The Three Stooges and Abbott & Costello were the gold standard, with the later rise & fall of the Smothers Brothers marking the end of that era.But there were also the sort of more subtle gag lines and themes that still appeal to our more developed, sophisticated senses of humor. A fine example of this, "alone worth the price of admission" to this film, is where one of those corrupt officials, noted in other comments above, at first repeats about Georgi, "Less and less I like this Yakobovich...!" but as time goes on, and Georgi wins hearts & minds, his tune changes to repeating, "More and more I like this Yakobovich!" Gogol's original play was a bitter satire about corruption in Tsarist Russia, a theme and storyline that would likely puzzle Western audiences. Perhaps the greater familiarity of Napoleon as "the Emperor" in place of the Tsar -- also an emperor -- inspired the screenplay author to change the setting from Russia to some vague 'Eastern European' town, retaining the Russian names & even pseudo-accent, that may have fallen into Napoleon's empire for a while; making this film less about the Russian (pre-Soviet-Communist-during-the-Cold-War) Bear than about the rampant silliness of pervasive small-town petty and not-so-petty corruption even as still practiced today in many small towns in America. A fine farce based on real life in Russia originally, in mythical small towns in Europe then, and in our very real home towns today: Over centuries and across millions of miles, only the names on the doors have changed; from big city graft to small town vice, the only real difference is in the size of the numbers.Some say this movie is merely a vehicle for Danny Kaye; actually, only Danny Kaye could make us laugh at all the routine petty criminality encompassed in the saying, "You can't fight City Hall." All you need to do to ENJOY this wonderful timeless parody of malodorous malingering municipal malapropism & malfeasances is to willingly suspend any modern expectation of & insistence upon sophisticated authenticity & realism.

sol- It is easy to see that this film was intended to be more of a vehicle for Danny Kaye's comedy antics than a fully developed and deep farce, but even so it is entertaining to watch, with some good tunes and a fair amount of funny moments to be had. It is awfully silly at times, with over-the-top jokes and various excesses, but it makes pretty good viewing in general. Well-used sound effects plus apt costumes and sets help enhance the experience too. It takes a while to warm up, and some of the time old elements are thrown in to not much avail, such as a typical love subplot, but if one is to take the film lightheartedly it is quite amusing, even if some of Kaye's skits go a bit overboard.