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A minor gem thanks to a clever script, fast-paced direction, and top radio stars of the day. Fibber McGee wants to locate a new aircraft plant in Wistful Vista, and gets Edgar Bergen to help him. The machinations fly fast and furious, along with a hair-raising finale where non-pilot McGee is at the controls of a twirling airplane. Everyone gets a turn at getting laughs, including Lucille Ball who already shows a flair for comedy along with a shapely leg. Then there's that blustery small-town blowhard Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, who would soon star in his own movie series. Fibber's wife Molly also gets to do her little girl voice that's so amusing. But the real star is the inimitable Charlie McCarthy. I hate to say so, but after awhile I started thinking he was a real person. I expect he has that effect on a lot of viewers. Anyway, the movie remains a minor delight, and I don't think that's just nostalgia for the entertainment I grew up with.

This film based on the Fibber McGee And Molly radio series has Fibber enlisting Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy to get industrialist Neil Hamilton to build an aircraft plant in their town of lovely Wistful Vista. Looking to crab the deal is speculator Charles Halton and the McGees neighbor the ever larcenous Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve.

The McGees were quite the American institution on radio. The films that real life married couple Jim and Marian Jordan allowed America to see the McGees as well as follow them weekly on radio. So in fact was Edgar Bergen and his two wooden companions Charlie McCarthy and Knucklehead Smiff.

Another future legend this one on television Lucille Ball also appears Look Who's Laughing. And Harold Peary who began as a neighbor of the McGees on their show spun off on his own with The Great Gildersleeve. Both Fibber McGee And Molly and The Great Gildersleeve were tried on television with different actors in the starring roles and never found an audience.

The climax is a hoot with McGee accidentally pushing the start button on Edgar Bergen's airplane and taking off. Bergen performs a rescue a long the lines of one that Charlton Heston did in Airport 75. Of course with a lot more laughs than Heston got.

Nostalgia lovers like myself will enjoy this one.

No, radio characters often don't lend themselves to a visual medium, and this no exception.

Bergen and McCarthy look ridiculous. Bergen was always an obvious ventriloquist who kept moving his head to distract people from seeing his lips move so obviously. And then the worst, acting as if Charlie McCarthy is able to sit by himself and even answer the phone. Waaaaay better on radio.

Gildersleeve probably comes off better on screen than on radio because he's such a buoyant character to behold.

Lucy at the time was eye candy, and later it became harder to view her as so feminine.

Nevertheless, the audience of the day got to see people they loved for years. It was probably well worth it in the day. They likely suspended all of the shortcomings and came away feeling warm.

As a contributor in the 45+ category, I was amazed and somewhat puzzled to note that the highest scores for this movie came from the 18+ group of viewers, and the LOWEST came from my and older generations who would have remembered fondly Fibber McGee and Molly, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy and the Great Gildersleeve as a result of listening to their weekly radio shows. Perhaps the evaluation reflects disappointment at seing their favorites not in their familiar formats (though the writers managed to include most of the familiar tag-lines from both radio shows) Certainly the plot (!) is paper-thin and full of inconsistencies. Still, the performers came across as very likeable and there were more than a few chuckles. Probably because of this, the film was a surprise box-office success in 1941. I watched it on tape last night, and had the same strange feeling as the other IMDB respondent, to see Charlie, not on Bergen's knee, interacting with other actors as though he was human. This was even stranger in the follow-up film Here We Go Again, when a midget dressed as Charlie dances on a ballroom floor. It reminds me of the puppets in Great Gabbo and Dead of Night, where the dummy overrides the personality of the ventriloquist.

This film pairs Fibber McGee and Molly with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. Bergen holds up as fun entertainment, using Charlie as a separate entity who has his own contrary personality. Fibber and Molly, unfortunately, do not translate well from radio. No doubt radio "watchers" used to scream with anticipation whenever Fibber even thought about opening that closet, but on film it is as dull as a doorknob.

It's fun to see Lucille Ball, though she doesn't get to spread her comedy wings much in this role.