HI DIDDLE DIDDLE
US, 1943, 78 minutes, Black-and-white.
Adolphe Menjou, Martha Scott, Pola Negri, Dennis O 'Keefe, Billy Burke, June Havoc, Walter Kingsford, Barton Hepburn.
Directed by Andrew Stone.
For those interested in the history of film, in the history of Hollywood, this is a must-see.
Hi diddle diddle – the cat and the fiddle (and there is a lot of financial fiddling in the screenplay), the cow jumped over the moon, and there are some justice preposterous goings-on during this comedy, more than a touch of the screwball.
The screenplay is entertaining, wit and wisecracks. And, it is quite improbable. The tone is set with animation openings (from prolific animation artist, Friz Freling, from Disney to a range of animated characters including the Pink Panther). And then there is the over-dramatic proposals from Dennis O ’Keefe playing Sonny, a sailor on service in World War II. Then he is proposed to by Martha Scott (later to be seen with such a dignity in The Ten Commandments and has Ben Hur’s mother).
Sonny is delayed in disembarking in time for the wedding so the guests enjoy the wedding breakfast first, the Reverend there is harried by time because he has to do a baptism so that is incorporated into the celebration. However, top billing is given to veteran star Adolphe Menjou, playing Sonny’s father, referred to as Colonel, but this is one of his many cons. And he is married to an opera singer played by silent star, Pola Negri. She has several scenes singing Wagner. It is one of those contrived marriages which leads to chance encounters and many mixups.
At the wedding, with Billie Burke during her perpetual ditzy performance as the bride’s mother, she and her friend, Peter (Barton Hepburn) explain that the mother has lost all her money in gambling, deceived, testing whether Sonny was marrying his fiancee for her money. The colonel promises to get the money back – which involves going to a club, a magnet under the table, naive Sonny investing his money – and winning it all back. However, he is caught at the club and gets entangled with his father’s singer friend who is sharing in the scam. She is played by June Havoc (an actress in her own right but well known, because of Gypsy, as Gypsy Rose Lee’s sister who performed under the name of Baby June) who has several songs, including accompanying herself seen singing on a television screen.
Lots of mixups, misunderstandings, tangles.
And, the couple can’t get away on their honeymoon because of the need to get the money back. Then, almost settled, the new wife is called out to do a raid warden duty! There are more tangles when his father indulges a huge scam selling for shares and then wants to set Sonny and his wife up in his own apartment without telling his wife – which means that practically everyone turns up at the apartment except that Sonny and his wife keep missing each other, getting in the taxi to go back, imposing on a passenger who wanted to go only two blocks and who accompanies them back and forth!
At the end, while Sonny and his wife are happily back in her mother’s house, everyone else is in the apartment, an impresario present with the Colonel’s wife, and some visitors including a singer who knows Wagner and everybody joining in singing Wagner – while, on the wall, there is an animated sequence with Wagner and his family on a picnic and Wagner closing his ears, upset, not wanting to hear the singing!
Director Andrew Stone made a number of entertaining small-budget features, venturing in the 1970s to more spectacular films, especially with music including The Great Waltz and Song of Norway.
