If you want to see a direct descendant of the Buster Keaton line of comedy, this is surely the movie. Skelton's funny physical antics while trying to retrieve a dollar from the floor or getting drunk with Keenan Wynne are topped by a chuckwagon race finale that deftly combines comedy and dangerous stunts.
In the supporting cast you've got Ann Miller's legs. I esp enjoyed seeing her tap her dancers' bongos. Ahem.
Esther Williams and Howard Keel are also in this movie, I assume, because Hollywood producers needed their names on the marquee to sell tickets. Fair enough. But they're mostly wasted. That ''underwater dream sequence" is goofy. And their romance is perfunctory.
A reference to a wrecked car (with no preceding scene with Skelton presumably wrecking the car, probably with Miller on board), a reference by Williams to a dinner speech she didn't actually give, and a romance between Skelton and Miller that had no beginning (I don't count her dance number by the piano) leaves me to conclude that 15 minutes or so got hacked out of this movie after preview audiences full of dummies said, ''it dragged in parts" and ''the car wreck scene wasn't funny" or ''that speech was boring."
Nevertheless, as long as you're not expecting to see Esther Williams floating around in a pool for 90 minutes (thankfully that only lasts about 90 seconds here) this is a decent way to kill just over an hour.
