Review of Hellzapoppin`

Introduction

In the depths of World War II, Hollywood (and for that matter Broadway) sought refuge from the horrors of war in humour. There had always been a strong tradition of humour in filmmaking from the early days of the cinema - slapstick, satire and quick-fire humour exemplified by the likes of Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, directors like Frank Capra, Howard Hawks and Preston Sturges. The 1930s had been the heyday of the Screwball Comedy with pictures like Bringing Up Baby. The war unleashed a new, sophisticated, anarchic humour as fast-paced as the Jitterbug and off-the-wall as a Warner Brothers cartoon.

Possibly the most madcap flowering of this era of screen humour was the 1942 Universal feature Hellzapoppin`, based on a massive Broadway hit which dazzled audiences with its breathless theatrical anarchy. The movie is viewed by some commentators as a forerunner of The Goons and Python, but if anything is the nearest thing you`ll ever get to a live action Warner Brothers cartoon.

Written by Warren Wilson, Nat Perrin and Alex Gottleib, and based on Olsen and Johnson`s play, Hellzapoppin` has very little storyline - basically being the old playwright needs a successful show to hit the big time story. The movie encases this in a script brainstorming session on a movie being made of the stage show. Confused yet? Relationships between the playwright, his girlfriend, her best friend and a phoney Russian count really get things screwy, and then logic really goes out of the window as the playwright`s pals Ole and Chic (Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson) along with a PI called Quimby (Hugh Herbert) do their best to wreck everybody`s plans and relationships - but all with the best of intentions.

Directed by HC Potter, Hellzapoppin` stars an eclectic mix - Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson reprise their Broadway roles in one of their few forays into movies.

Martha Raye offers support as the scatty Betty, best friend of romantic interest Kitty (Jane Frazee). Raye has her sights set on impecunious Russian count Pepi (Mischa Auer), and a misunderstanding regarding the whereabouts of her, Pepi and Kitty in the middle of the night sets Ole and Chic off on a crusade to cause the play to crash and burn.

The movie is pretty much groundbreaking as so many gags are fourth-wall breakers - at one point Olsen and Johnson argue with the theatre projectionist (played by Shemp Howard) and the picture starts to roll. There is a long-running gag throughout the picture concerning a delivery man and a pot plant for "Mrs Jones".

Being a musical comedy, the movie is interspersed with catchy tunes by Sammy Fain and Charles Tobias. The show theme - Hellzapoppin` ("anything can happen and it probably will") and Watch The Birdie are the show stoppers.

Look at the length of the skirt Martha Raye is wearing in the sequence where Olsen and Johnson are doing their wardrobe and prop inventory and just before and tell me that`s not a mini-skirt. This movie was before its time.

I`ve had a huge soft spot for Hellzapoppin` ever since I saw it as an afternoon matinee on BBC2 as a kid. Although this presentation of the movie leaves a lot to be desired, it`s wonderful to see an old favourite finally available on DVD.

Video

The movie is presented in its original 1942 aspect ratio of 1.37:1. The image has not been restored by any stretch of the imagination and there is a fair amount of print and negative dirt. There are also a lot of special effects sequences using mattes and the suchlike and of course with those there is a lot of image dirt printed in.

Audio

The original mono audio is reproduced in Dolby 2.0. Don`t expect any great shakes, but I warn you, you`ll be humming the Hellzapoppin` theme if you`re not careful.

Features

Absolutely bare-bones. Nothing. Nada. Not even subtitles, which is a real disappointment.

Conclusion

Hellzapoppin` is a stand-apart classic of Hollywood comedy. Surreal, fast-moving and frequently completely lunatic, it was based on a long-running and completely anarchic Broadway hit. Where havoc was guaranteed at every performance, the movie subverts cinematic devices to similar effect. The only movie I can think of which has similar moments of complete anarchy is the much maligned 1967 version of Casino Royale, where the climactic storming of the Casino degenerates into a Hellzapoppin`-style free-for-all. It isn`t a shadow of the original, which is as fresh today as it was in 1942, and possibly has finally reached an era which can really appreciate its lunacy.