After having just finished watching this picture, I came and read all the reviews here on IMDb. And it delights me to no end to discover that my own opinion is universally shared: George Burns should have been cast as Mr. North. I'm usually the contrarian and it is rare indeed when my opinion puts me in the majority. But I'm delighted to be in the majority here. Usually Gracie gets all the praise when it comes to Burns & Allen, it is really nice to see George get his due. Because, yes, this movie sorely needed George Burns. I'm truly glad it's so obvious to everyone.
Now I've never encountered the "real" 'Mr. and Mrs. North', whether that be on the printed page or the television screen. But I get the gist of what was going on here. The idea was clearly to take a known comic star and bring her own brand of comedy to an already existing property, and to hell with the fact that she's nothing like the original character. It reminds me very much of the Marx Brothers doing 'Room Service'. And in this case, it wasn't a horrible idea; Gracie carries it off pretty well. But if you're going to do it, *do* it! Go all the way, and bring in George as well. He probably didn't fit their idea of Mr. North, but so what? If Gracie didn't match the original concept of Mrs. North, then it should be no problem if George didn't match the original Mr. North. OK, so the movie would have been more 'Mr. and Mrs. Burns' than 'Mr. and Mrs. North'. But so what? It would have been a better, funnier film. And as it was, it was really 'Mrs. Burns and Mr. North'.
But other than that casting blunder, my only other real complaint with the film is that the story is almost impossible to follow. A big part of the problem is that there are a *lot* of characters, and yet very little exposition. It is really, really hard to keep track of just who all the characters *are*, let alone how they might fit into the murder. The director needed to do something about this.
But beyond these complaints, I thought it was a fun little movie. If you don't go in with expectations too high, it is a quite pleasant diversion. No masterpiece, to be sure, but quite enjoyable. With George, it could have been great. Pity.