Hellzapoppin' (film)
| Hellzapoppin' | |
|---|---|
Film poster
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| Directed by |
H. C. Potter Joseph A. McDonough (assistant) Edward Cline (additional comedy scenes) |
| Produced by |
Alex Gottlieb Jules Levey (uncredited) Glen Tryon |
| Written by |
Nat Perrin Warren Wilson Alex Gottlieb |
| Starring |
Ole Olsen Chic Johnson |
| Music by | Frank Skinner Ted Cain Charles Previn |
| Cinematography | Elwood Bredell |
| Edited by | Milton Carruth Ted J. Kent |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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84 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $1.7 million (US rentals) |
Hellzapoppin' is a 1941 Universal Pictures adaptation of the musical of the same name directed by H.C. Potter. The cast includes Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson (who produced and starred in it on Broadway), Martha Raye, Mischa Auer, Shemp Howard, Whitey's Lindy Hoppers and The Six Hits.
Shemp Howard begins the film as the projectionist of a cinema, displaying on its screen what appears to be the start of a song-and-dance number whose classily dressed performers walk down a staircase - which collapses as in a fun-house ride, sliding them all straight to hell. Demons punish them in various ways. Ole and Chic arrive in the midst of the mayhem by taxi, and after a bit of funny business step back to reveal that it's a movie sound stage. They work for Miracle Pictures ("If it's a good picture, it's a Miracle!") A mousy screenwriter (Elisha Cook, Jr.) outlines his script for the screen adaptation of Hellzapoppin', and the rest of the movie depicts Cook's crazy script. Among the topical humor is Johnson picking up a sled named "Rosebud" and saying "I thought they'd burnt that" (Olsen and Johnson were friends of Orson Welles, whose film Citizen Kane closes with Kane's childhood sled being burnt).
The film has a frenetic pace, and often breaks the 'Fourth wall', including inner 'fourth walls' introduced by its nonlinear, metafictional narrative.
The 1942 Academy Award nomination for Best Song for "Pig Foot Pete," (which lost to "White Christmas"), was attributed to Hellzapoppin', but the song never appeared in the film -- it was actually performed in another Universal production from the same year, the Abbott and Costello film Keep 'Em Flying.
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