Murders start occurring at a music publisher's and for no apparent reason, Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey are in the middle of it. Can these two idiots manage to solve the murder and save the day--or will they be The Black Widow's next victims?!
This Wheeler and Woolsey film is a bit different for them, as normally Wheeler's girlfriend in his films is played by Dorothy Lee. Aside from appearing in their films, Ms. Lee had a very limited career--but the same cannot be said of Wheeler's love interest in "The Nitwits". Here, his lady friend, Mary, is played by a very young Betty Grable--well before she became a national sensation.
Unfortunately, the rest of the film is NOT different from most of the films made by this comedy team. Like most, it lacked comedy--yet, inexplicably, the pair were very popular during the 1930s. Why, I haven't the foggiest, as the film has barely a laugh in it. However, despite not being funny, the rest of the film is a typical sort of comedy-murder mystery...with one exception. Throughout the movie, the filmmakers tried to elicit cheap laughs playing on racist stereotypes. Most of the black men in the film spent their time shooting dice and being VERY afraid of a guy dressed up like a skeleton--two annoying and dumb clichés of the era. Today, this sort of thing makes folks cringe-- back then it was a laugh riot.
Overall, if you compare this to a comedy like Abbott and Costello's "Hold That Ghost" or Bob Hope's "Ghostbreakers", it comes up very, very short indeed. You could certainly do better with your time.
This Wheeler and Woolsey film is a bit different for them, as normally Wheeler's girlfriend in his films is played by Dorothy Lee. Aside from appearing in their films, Ms. Lee had a very limited career--but the same cannot be said of Wheeler's love interest in "The Nitwits". Here, his lady friend, Mary, is played by a very young Betty Grable--well before she became a national sensation.
Unfortunately, the rest of the film is NOT different from most of the films made by this comedy team. Like most, it lacked comedy--yet, inexplicably, the pair were very popular during the 1930s. Why, I haven't the foggiest, as the film has barely a laugh in it. However, despite not being funny, the rest of the film is a typical sort of comedy-murder mystery...with one exception. Throughout the movie, the filmmakers tried to elicit cheap laughs playing on racist stereotypes. Most of the black men in the film spent their time shooting dice and being VERY afraid of a guy dressed up like a skeleton--two annoying and dumb clichés of the era. Today, this sort of thing makes folks cringe-- back then it was a laugh riot.
Overall, if you compare this to a comedy like Abbott and Costello's "Hold That Ghost" or Bob Hope's "Ghostbreakers", it comes up very, very short indeed. You could certainly do better with your time.