George Stevens had previously directed RKO's top comedy duo a year earlier in KENTUCKY KERNELS. This time the boys are thrown into a corporate setting, playing cigar stand owners in a building where a music company does business. One of them (Bert Wheeler) is in love with a pretty secretary (Betty Grable), while the other (Robert Woolsey) is focused on perfecting his latest screwy invention.
The invention, a truth telling apparatus, is glimpsed briefly at the beginning of the movie. But it plays an important role later when a killer's identity is made known. Leave it to Wheeler & Woolsey to help police solve a whodunit in the zaniest way possible. Most of what occurs on screen is a bit surreal, but that's what makes these comedy features from the 1930s so much fun.
At one point, Woolsey is afraid that his pal may be the killer, so he tries to throw the cops off the track by nearly confessing to the crime himself. During these scenes there's a good gag involving some handcuffs and a fly-away hat. Later, we have a goofy reenactment of the murder where Woolsey plays the victim. While not every bit works, these pictures are never short on imagination or gimmicks.
Perhaps the highlight of the film is a wonderful sight gag where the boys walk on stilts down a darkened street and around a corner. They want to be tall enough to speak to Grable, who's just been arrested and is looking out a jail cell window several stories up. As they talk to her, a crook who is down below on another floor starts sawing their wooden stilt's legs. It's an amusing scene, especially when the stilts give way and they are scrambling off in trousers that are now much too long for them!
Adding to the overall merriment of the proceedings are a few catchy tunes. After all, Grable's character is employed by a music publishing firm. So of course, she'd have to sing a number or two. She's great, and her performance hints of bigger things to come for her in the musical comedy genre.
One other thing worth mentioning is the actor who plays the murderer. He is quite convincing, meaning he plays some of his scenes so smoothly that it doesn't seem obvious he's the bad guy until the end. He wears an interesting costume in the final climactic sequence, something that seems straight out of Halloween.
THE NITWITS was a big hit for the studio. So it is not surprising that RKO execs saw fit to remake the story eleven years later. That time GENIUS AT WORK featured Alan Carney and Wally Brown. And lovely Anne Jeffreys took the part played by Grable.
The invention, a truth telling apparatus, is glimpsed briefly at the beginning of the movie. But it plays an important role later when a killer's identity is made known. Leave it to Wheeler & Woolsey to help police solve a whodunit in the zaniest way possible. Most of what occurs on screen is a bit surreal, but that's what makes these comedy features from the 1930s so much fun.
At one point, Woolsey is afraid that his pal may be the killer, so he tries to throw the cops off the track by nearly confessing to the crime himself. During these scenes there's a good gag involving some handcuffs and a fly-away hat. Later, we have a goofy reenactment of the murder where Woolsey plays the victim. While not every bit works, these pictures are never short on imagination or gimmicks.
Perhaps the highlight of the film is a wonderful sight gag where the boys walk on stilts down a darkened street and around a corner. They want to be tall enough to speak to Grable, who's just been arrested and is looking out a jail cell window several stories up. As they talk to her, a crook who is down below on another floor starts sawing their wooden stilt's legs. It's an amusing scene, especially when the stilts give way and they are scrambling off in trousers that are now much too long for them!
Adding to the overall merriment of the proceedings are a few catchy tunes. After all, Grable's character is employed by a music publishing firm. So of course, she'd have to sing a number or two. She's great, and her performance hints of bigger things to come for her in the musical comedy genre.
One other thing worth mentioning is the actor who plays the murderer. He is quite convincing, meaning he plays some of his scenes so smoothly that it doesn't seem obvious he's the bad guy until the end. He wears an interesting costume in the final climactic sequence, something that seems straight out of Halloween.
THE NITWITS was a big hit for the studio. So it is not surprising that RKO execs saw fit to remake the story eleven years later. That time GENIUS AT WORK featured Alan Carney and Wally Brown. And lovely Anne Jeffreys took the part played by Grable.