The Nitwits

The first time I seen this film, I literally laughed myself sick! This film is many, many different types of movies rolled into one. You can call is a mystery for the who done it, science fiction for the speak truth machine, crime drama for the gangster activity, musical for the songs, thriller for the spooky scenes in the dark, love story for the scenes between Bert Wheeler & Betty Grable and of course, a comedy. The only catagory it wouldn't fall in is a western. This film has all the elements of the true classic comedy. It has the classic slap-stick which is extinct now-a-days. The scenes w/ Arthur Treacher as the poor victim always encountering the boys on the steps is this rare extinct form of comedy . I love it when they throw his tennis balls and land right in the cop's mouths. The scenes toward the end are also great. It's especially funny when these poor colored chaps try to have their crap game and end up having the bejesus scared out of them. They end up being chased by everyone else. This film is non-stop fun and unlike modern films, it is completely free of foul language & sex. Only a little bit of mild violence which I wouldn't be afraid to show even to small children. This is a film that will make time fly. It is total fun from start to finish. I would recommend this film to everyone except those of who who have a bad heart; they may laugh themselves dead!

The humor in the films of Wheeler and Woolsey seemed to go steadily downhill from their early promise in "Rio Rita" to at least this one, made 6 years later. These two very funny guys try mightily to overcome some tepid material in "The Nitwits" and get a boost from the murder mystery back story, which at least challenges you to spot the murderer.

The familiar faces on hand are Betty Grable as Bert's girl friend, Erik Rhodes, best remembered with a foreign accent in some Astaire/Rogers musicals, and Willie Best who plays (what else?) the janitor. Also Arthur Treacher, who has some funny scenes as a hapless tennis instructor enroute to an appointment in the building where most of the story takes place.

There are two good songs in the picture which elevate the proceedings and my rating, "Music In My Heart" and "You Opened My Eyes", which is the better of the two. Wheeler and Grable dance together in that one in a pretty athletic and acrobatic number. It makes you wonder how much better this could have been with better screenwriters.

For awhile it looks as though THE NITWITS will be fun along the lines of an Abbot and Costello comedy that mixes mirth with murder in the form of a who-dun-it, but by the time the murderer is revealed as the man behind The Black Widow killings, the story has limped to a madcap slapstick conclusion with an assortment of gags, some good, some tiresome.

Along the way there are a couple of innocuous songs, one of them sung by a very young BETTY GRABLE before stardom at Fox, which she duets with BERT WHEELER. She's the secretary of a murdered executive and for awhile she joins the list of suspects, although we know she's innocent. ERIC RHODES has little to do as a man with a good reason to be one of the suspects, but the plot mainly has to do with Wheeler and ROBERT WOOLSEY (who looks like Phil Silvers on diet pills), and their scatterbrained encounters with the policemen trying to solve the case.

George Stevens directs the whole thing at a fast clip, especially the climactic ten minute scene of frantic over-the-top slapstick that concludes the story.

Summing up: Just okay if you're a fan of Wheeler and Woolsey. It's the kind of slapstick farce the kiddies usually enjoy at a Saturday matinée.

The Nitwits are of course Wheeler&Woolsey and in this film they own a cigar stand in the building where music publisher Hale Hamilton has an office. Hamilton's got a secretary played by Betty Grable that Bert is stuck on. Hamilton's married to Evelyn Brent, but never lets that stand in the way of a little nookie.

Anyway, a notorious criminal called the Black Widow is known for sending out letters of extortion demanding money or the victim would be killed. Hamilton decides not to give in and does wind up dead as a result.

Unlike Abbott&Costello's Who Done It which has a lot of the same plot premise, The Nitwits is better edited and the perpetrator doesn't come out of nowhere as in Bud&Lou's film. Unfortunately due to one of the gags which involves Woolsey inventing a chair in which a charge of electricity passes through you so you blurt the truth out, we learn a little prematurely in my opinion who the culprit is.

Anyway because Betty is a prime suspect, Wheeler&Woolsey get themselves involved in the investigation. They prove as much help to the cops as Abbott&Costello did, but like them they do stumble on to the perpetrator.

One reason this film is not revived too often is the climax also involves a bunch of black people being allowed by one of their peers who works as a janitor to use the basement for a quiet crap game. Their fright reactions in the climatic chase of the culprit plays into a lot of racial stereotyping.

Anyway I did like Woolsey's Rube Goldberg contraption as a gag. Maybe they could use a real one of those at Guantanamo.

Nitwits, The (1935)

*** (out of 4)

Wheeler and Woolsey comedy has the boys playing cigar salesmen who get caught up in a murder mystery surrounding a killer known as "The Black Widow". This is a pretty good little gem that manages to be quite hilarious but it also has a good mystery surrounding it. There's also no doubt that this film influenced Abbott and Costello's Who Done It? not to mention there are other gags here later used by Abbott and Costello. The film has non-stop gags including a hilarious sequence that involves a chase towards the end of the film. Just about every type of gag gets thrown out there and the majority of them stick. There's also a very funny scene where Woolsey scares the future dead victim by singing a song about a black widow. Betty Grable play's Wheeler's girlfriend and the prime murder suspect and she's very good in her bit role. Black actor Willie Best has some of the funniest scenes, although most of them come in the form of racial jokes.