User Reviews

I only recently learned that this film exists, being shown on a Turner Classics tribute to Red Skelton's Hollywood films. Sure could have used a better title((We might anticipate it being a story about Red as a vacuum cleaner salesman, to complement his role in "The Fuller Brushman"). This early '50s Technicolor film is primarily a romantic comedy, with the occasional song or dance routine thrown in, usually involving one of Red's on and off girlfriends. Red stars as a very unlikely pioneer of the horseless carriage, in the 1890s. The entrenched horse and carriage interests talk of repeating the absurd repealed English requirement that all such vehicles must be preceded by a pedestrian waving a red flag! Fortunately, this was not enforced. Of course, Red's internal combustion-powered dandy is as dependable as a very stubborn mule, often creating havoc for horsed carriages, pedestrians and shops. Nonetheless, he qualifies for a wacky cross country race between horseless carriages of various designs and means of propulsion, including steam and battery-powered vehicles. Of course, this turns into a keystone cops-like affair, requiring the help of one of Red's girlfriends(Sally Forrest), after he is accidentally knocked senseless by a competitor. Symbolically, the internal combustion engine barely bests the others in the end.

All in all, a delightful light experience, seldom becoming tedious, with comedy, song and dance nicely blended. The better known musical "Three Little Words", made about the same time and costarring Skelton with Fred Astaire and Vera Ellen, actually has many more dry scenes, with Skelton's comedic persona only occasionally surfacing, although some of the musical numbers and dance routines are more memorable than those in the present film.

It's not bad. It's kind of relaxed and soothing, a mnemonic massage. It occurred to me, watching this Red Skelton movie set around the turn of the century, that there must have been people in the 1951 audience for whom this story of the appearance of the horseless carriage evoked childhood memories.

It was filmed in the hills of sunny California where it never gets cold and the air is filled with the scent of lemon verbena. Altogether pleasant.

Not exactly exciting though. There are a few comic action scenes. Skelton finally gets his gas-o-mobile running and it chugs around empty in circles while he chases it and falls down. In a later scene he's behind the wheel but he can't stop it and it sputters into a small pond. His character is its usual clumsy, somewhat opaque self, and there is little spirit in the dialog, although Skelton does his best with the tepid story. I think I prefer his more robust comedies. Not the silly ones but the ones into which some thought has gone. "A Southern Yankee" and its sequence in the dentist's chair, which may have e been staged by Buster Keaton.

Monica Lewis is a pretentious competitor for Skelton. She once spent two weeks in France. "C'est formidable" becomes "set forMIDable." She's a fine singer and gets two tunes. None of the songs are memorable but the most pleasant, "Spring Has Sprung Tonight" is given to Skelton. Sally Forrest must have had some dance training because she does some unchallenging but well-executed turns in a kind of dream ballet. The supporting dancers gets to show their stuff, choreographed by Hermes Pan. Her features are a little pinched but in a way that makes them beguiling.

You know, I haven't exactly bestowed a royal title on this movie. I've pretty much played it down. But when I compare it to eighty-five point one percent of the crap that's being ground out these days -- vampires, ghouls, slashers, constant fusillades, bombs, the palette a ghoulish green, the editor on crack, the director seemingly drunk on an excess of narcissism -- I imagine you'd live longer watching a modest, colorful, deliberately paced musical comedy from 1951.

And on top of that, I've watched the size of an ordinary can of tuna fish shrink from seven ounces, through six and a half, to six ounces. The only thing that sustains persons of my age is the memory of that seven ounce can.

This movie was based on a book by Bellamy Partridge, who doesn't seem to have been given any credit AMONG the credits. Anyway, my mother had a copy of the book, which I read as soon as I learned to read, about 1951-52, when I started school. I became fascinated by antique automobiles. So when "Excuse My Dust" came to our home town, of course my parents took me to see it.

And I loved it! Red Skelton as Joe Belden (a takeoff from "Bellamy,") is trying to get his horseless carriage to run properly in his small Indiana town. As Skelton was born and raised in Vincennes, Indiana, and I'm a born Hoosier, too, it's no wonder it grabbed me as it did. Old-time cars, one-cylinder, steered with a tiller-like lever (no steering wheels yet), with a top speed of maybe 12 miles per hour!

Belden and his girlfriend (Sally Forrest), and Macdonald Carey as the "bad guy," sort of, who wants to steal her away, spar back and forth throughout the movie, which includes some pretty good music and dancing. At the climax, Belden, Carey, and several other owners of these horseless carriages participate in a slam-bang race for a first prize that must have seemed like a fortune in 1895 America.

Red is a little more restrained than usual for him in his comedies, but then again, this one isn't a Three Stooges. Milder, more musical. More -- Hoosier. Well worth watching!