Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Charles Herold (cherold) Super-Sleuth stars Jack Oakie as a detective-playing actor who taunts the police for failing to catch a criminal that then targets him. This isn't a mystery - we know who the killer is early on. The only real mystery of the movie is the killer's motive, but don't expect an answer to that.Oakie is an amusing guy who plays his idiocy well, breezing down the street with - to quote a t-shirt - all the confidence of a mediocre white man.Edgar Kennedy does his usual schtick well, and Ann Sothern is likable even though she and Oakie have absolutely no degree of chemistry.The worst thing in the movie is a black servant who is a particularly egregious example of the way Hollywood turned African Americans into idiot children. It is painful to watch.I wouldn't go so far as to recommend this film, but Oakie does make it watchable.

beachy-38431 I usually find movies of this era poorly written, over-acted, and the comedies not funny. This one is funny thanks to Jack Oakie. Ann Southern and the other actors did over-act, see.

dougdoepke Great chance for moon-faced comedian Jack Oakie to mug it up for an hour or so. He's a movie detective at a Hollywood studio in what's obviously a spoof of movie sleuths so popular at the time. Never mind that his Willard Martin is a 30-watt bulb in a 60-watt world. Martin has convinced himself he's the greatest actor since Barrymore, so it's fun to watch him bumble along head held high even as his rear-end sags. Still, Oakie manages the egotistical character without making him obnoxious. It's a slender exercise that has someone trying to kill Martin because they didn't like his last movie— what inspired motivation! Still, the screenplay should have made a mystery of the public-spirited culprit instead of tipping us off so early. That would have added an extra element of comical suspense. Anyway, the lovely Ann Sothern is a studio flack who has her hands full keeping the bumbler out of trouble, while trying to stay away from Prof. Herman's house of horrors. Maybe the best parts are the behind-the-scenes look at movie-making on a sound stage and on location. Paul Guilfoyle breaks from his usual wacky characters to play the no-nonsense movie director, of all things. The wind-up is a whirlwind slapstick through the professor's museum, making this a lively if slender glimpse of the bottom-of-the-bill, 1930's style.

Arthur Hausner A crime-comedy, with Jack Oakie very personable as a movie detective who is short on brains. Famous actors are getting poison pen letters, which we learn quickly are from house-of-horrors owner Eduardo Ciannelli, whose motive seems to be revenge for bad acting. Oakie gets such a letter announcing he'll be killed, so he goes to Ciannelli, his friend, and says he knows who sent it! It's the one sending all those poison pen letters. That's the level of Oakie's intelligence (and the level of the comedy in the script). Ciannelli has lots of opportunities to kill Oakie, including with a rifle with a gunsight. The comedy comes from Oakie, his servant, Willie Best (again shamefully stereotyped), and the hapless police inspector, Edgar Kennedy. Ann Sothern seems wasted as Oakie's publicity manager.