I Dood It (1943)

Director:

Vincente Minnelli

Writers:

Sig Herzig (writer)
Fred Saidy (writer)

Release Date:

September 1943 (USA)

Genre:

Romance | Comedy | Musical | Thriller

Plot:

Constance Shaw is a dance star on Broadway, Joseph Rivington Reynolds is a keen fan of her. After she is fed up with her friend...

Plot Keywords:

Theater | Bomb | German | Deception | Jealousy

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Red Skelton	...	Joseph 'Joe' Rivington Renolds
Eleanor Powell	...	Miss Constance 'Connie' Shaw
Richard Ainley	...	Larry West
Patricia Dane	...	Suretta Brenton
Sam Levene	...	Ed Jackson
Thurston Hall	...	Kenneth 'Ken' Cawlor
Lena Horne	...	Herself
Hazel Scott	...	Herself
Jimmy Dorsey	...	Himself (as Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra)
Helen O'Connell	...	Herself
Bob Eberly	...	Himself
John Hodiak	...	Roy Hartwood
Butterfly McQueen	...	Annette
Marjorie Gateson	...	Mrs. Alice Spelvin
Andrew Tombes	...	Mr. Alfred Spelvin

Also Known As:

By Hook or by Crook (UK)

Runtime:

102 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:G | Finland:K-16 | USA:Approved (PCA #9171) | Sweden:Btl

Company:

Loew's

Trivia:

The title of the film is from a catchphrase used by Red Skelton on his radio show when he was in character as the "Mean Widdle Kid".

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in Who Killed Who? (1943)

Soundtrack:

Gwine to Rune All Night

Dood It Three Times

I have this notion that the thirties was a great pressure cooker for movies, during which time all sorts of experiments were tried. Out of that period came the genres we know today, plus the great invention of Noir, uniquely American.

So I've been watching lots of 30s movies, not because they are good or particularly enjoyable. But because you can see the genotype of today's movies, which is to say I can see the origins of how we all dream and mostly imagine.

Now here is an anomaly, a 30s movie made in the 40s. I can only imagine that it was to feed the war-starved theaters. It is a remake and "borrows" musical numbers from a couple films that really were made in the 30s.

It is a spliced picture, three movies combined, something that was common in the 30's.

One movie is a stage show. Simple and straightforward. Lots of variety here.

A second movie is a comedic fold: a movie where all the players are involved in some way in a play (different than the earlier mentioned performances and more like "Gone with the Wind"). Lots of physical humor here. Red Skelton's technique was to perform a comedic motion (like rolling his eyes after getting bonked) in an exaggerated fashion and then abruptly stop before it finished and look at the audience with a big grin. It was humor about humor, a not very sophisticated but an effective fold that would grow into what we have today (and call irony).

The third movie has a wartime saboteur. Because the "fold," the notion of the play within the play, is explicit here, the explosion is to blow up the theater (and somehow simultaneously threaten the nation by mechanisms unexplained).

Its a mess, these three parts not integrated in any way.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.