Synopsis
AT LAST IT'S ON THE SCREEN! Greater than the Stage Show!
Olsen and Johnson, a pair of stage comedians, try to turn their play into a movie and bring together a young couple in love, while breaking the fourth wall every step of the way.
1941 Directed by H. C. Potter
Olsen and Johnson, a pair of stage comedians, try to turn their play into a movie and bring together a young couple in love, while breaking the fourth wall every step of the way.
Ole Olsen Chic Johnson Martha Raye Hugh Herbert Jane Frazee Robert Paige Mischa Auer Richard Lane Lewis Howard Clarence Kolb Nella Walker Shemp Howard Elisha Cook Jr. Frank Darien Kay Johnson Gus Schilling Slim Gaillard Slam Stewart Harlem Congeroos Olive Hatch Eddie Acuff Kathryn Adams Sig Arno Frank Austin Don Brodie George Chandler Milton Charleston Dean Collins Billy Curtis Show All…
Il cabaret dell'inferno
It opens with a scene of hell. Men and women are tormented for their sings, devils forge pitchforks, and an industrial vision of eternal damnation plays out... to lively, peppy music. Moments later, it shatters the fourth wall and jumps into a romantic comedy, but none of that matters. This is positively Marxist, and it has nothing to do with economics. This is concentrated absurdity. It has a bit more focus on its plot than, say, Duck Soup, but not by much. The plot is a backbone that they build lunacy onto.
It digresses wildly. It hops from song to song without reason. It sets up gags and knocks them down, and it doesn't let reality get in the way.…
Sign me up for the "Hellzapoppin' is the Greatest Thing Ever" club.
H E L L Z A P O P P I N'
I can't even imagine how fresh this must have felt in 1941. Even today, almost 80 years later, this is one of the wildest rides I've ever been on. The jokes fly by every couple seconds, never stopping for a breath. It's cartoonish mayhem. The film gleefully acknowledges that it is a film; constant 4th wall breaking remains charming here despite how many times I've seen it done elsewhere. Perhaps playing with the 4th wall wasn't unheard of at the time, but this must have pushed it further than anything audiences had seen. There are jokes about the script as the film is playing out, the frame itself,…
maybe the greatest metacinematic farce ever made? this certainly makes any attempt at breaking the fourth wall since 1941 seem feeble in comparison. the key to Hellzapoppin', if such a thing exists, is that it's never once too clever for its own good. lesser films casually surf through the easy laughs, ticking off what you'd expect from the "we're in a movie!" premise, but this is far too preoccupied with how much it can pull off in 74 minutes that the result is as creative as it is chaotic, lacking practically any pretension in this beaming comedy of its own creation. speaking of, the way this plays with form is utterly infectious; the central meta relationship plays out as a…
Begins as a throw-every-joke-you-can-as-fast-as-you-can chaotic show full of random gags, non-sequiturs, and slapstick, with lots of 4th-wall-braking, and then moves into a MST3K style thing, and finally settles down to a real story line. Of sorts.
Opens in a sort of Hell with devils everywhere, when a cab comes rolling and out fall Olsen and Johnson, one of them says, "This is the first time a taxi driver ever went exactly where I told 'im." There are several things that must have given the Hays office migraines. Then they are talking to a director about putting their vaudeville show on film. He is showing them on a screen the story, but they are narrating what's going on, like a MST3K…
For as long as I've been into old films, particularly old comedies, I've been reading about Hellzapoppin and how far ahead of it's time it was. And for some reason I've never got round to it, despite loving the Marx brothers, its most common point of comparison, I just thought it would be that bit too zany or vaudeville for me or interesting only in what it got away with.
And it kind of is, I'm not sure its the funniest thing from the period I've ever seen although it got genuinely funny performances from Mischa Auer and Hugh Herbert and I've seen a lot from them that really wasn't that great. There are some very good gags there, I…
2014's Shemp-A-Thon continues with Hellzapoppin'.
I've heard tell of this movie for many years, mostly in the context of it being used as a kind of catch-all point of comparison for any particularly anarchic metatextual comedy produced since 1941, including favorites like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Mel Brooks' movies, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, etc., so it figured I'd be very interested to finally watch this thing. Now that I have, I can't say it's funnier than any of those things, but it does have a compulsively watchable spirit that manages to be fascinating even when it's not laugh-out-loud funny - the only dead spots are the obviously (and explicitly acknowledged as) studio-mandated musical numbers and romantic storyline.…
The screenwriters of Hellzapoppin’ were either a group of friends whose home is a padded cell or who spent a little too much time eyeing up nose candy, but then a more rational explanation would be a combination of the two. There’s a lot to be said about the energy and speed of this film, it’s overwhelming to the point where the film quite literally runs off its own projector – several times! That combined with its creativity and recklessness made me pause to question if Godard was somehow related but then again this makes even him look conventional by comparison.
Reading some of the thoughts of others on this site, there seems to be a clear consensus that this…
'What the Hellzapoppin' was that I just watched?!' (Trolleyfreak, 2018)
Brief Synopsis: You're kidding me, right?
Background: Universal Pictures, keen to double up on the astounding fortunes they were making with Abbott and Costello, signed Olson and Johnson on the strength of their madcap travelling revue show Hellzapoppin and decided to attempt to make a film version - in the process adding an apostrophe to the title! - of a production which had opened on Broadway in 1938 and played to packed houses for over a thousand performances.
Verdict: Possibly the most insane, fantastic, deranged, unhinged, demented, daft, frenzied, barmy, dizzy and delirious Classic Hollywood film I've ever seen..... and that's coming from someone who's seen a lot of W.C.…
Tell your friends about the most meta, slapstick film imaginable! Spread the good word!
"Anything can happen and it probably will."
If there's any movie that currently doesn't have a DVD/Blu-ray release in the states that deserves one, it's this. More people need to experience Olsen and Johnson's musical masterpiece that balances solid musical numbers with fourth wall breaking jokes that Deadpool would be jealous of. It's Joe Dante's favorite movie for a reason.
ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN AND IT PROBABLY WILL.
This film laughs at you and refuses to have a dull moment. It has to be seen to be believed. The songs will never leave your head.
Absolute insanity from start to finish. The best musical ever.
(Also how the fuck does this not have a DVD release in the States, it's as outrageous as the lindy hop)
This is what you do with a blank check in comedy. A must-see kaleidoscopic revelation that's every bit as fresh and funny as anything made in the following 80 years, a Looney Tunes cartoon in live action while the template for Looney Tunes cartoons was still being constructed. Thumbs its nose at the rules and opens up the possibilities for comedy in the same way that Berkeley did with musicals. Like Berkeley, too few people have taken it to heart, leaving us with stunning alternate history examples of what Hollywood could have delivered with the potential of cinema. Should be required viewing for cinephiles.
maybe the greatest metacinematic farce ever made? this certainly makes any attempt at breaking the fourth wall since 1941 seem feeble in comparison. the key to Hellzapoppin', if such a thing exists, is that it's never once too clever for its own good. lesser films casually surf through the easy laughs, ticking off what you'd expect from the "we're in a movie!" premise, but this is far too preoccupied with how much it can pull off in 74 minutes that the result is as creative as it is chaotic, lacking practically any pretension in this beaming comedy of its own creation. speaking of, the way this plays with form is utterly infectious; the central meta relationship plays out as a…
Obvious praises for the visuals, plot-structure and one of the greatest dance-seguences aside, 80 years ago people had the Adult Swim Aesthetic.
During the entire runtime I could not stop thinking about Loiter Squad.
I guess everything is cyclical.
Well, Hell sure was a'poppin'! Scantily-clad devils were prodding people. Jokes were flying. Seemed like fun. I honestly thought Elisha Cook Jr. would make it out of this one without being shot, but boy was I wrong!
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