Such a frustrating disappointment

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Who could imagine anything more ridiculous than bespectacled 40s big band leader KAY KYSER ever being a spy?? Well, that's the key in this amusing wartime farce, and its strength. Everybody knows Kyser as a benign, southern gentleman from the ultra popular KOLLEGE OF MUSICAL KNOWLEDGE radio show, so drafting him and using him as a spy is the perfect governmental solution! When Nazis are discovered using musical arrangements to broadcast coded messages, Kyser is on the case! Particularly memorable are his two lovely costars, Ellen Drew (she of the PERFECT body and cheekbones)and Jane Wyman as his cohort in spy-dom. Kyser tries to act tough ("Bartender! Stab us with a couple of drinks!")but can't quite rise to the occasion. Perhaps he'll prevail in the end! Great(though not enough) songs! Harry Babbitt sings the perfect 'homesick soldier' song, JUST PLAIN LONESOME, and bouncy Sully Mason the catchy GOT THE MOON IN MY POCKET. People seem surprised to hear Harold Lloyd produced this film. Whaddya they want- Kyser hanging from a clock?? Ish Kabibble (Merwyn Bogue) is first rate in his usual capacity as inane sidekick, but could have been used more. Robert Armstrong (King Kong)is the perfect expressionless American Nazi/tough guy. Out of Kyser's 7 features, this one for RKO, I'd rate this 4 out of 5 stars. More on 'The IL' Professor of Swing at kaykyser.net Fun flick!!

If you like the goofball comedies of the 1940s, mixing wordplay, parodies of genres, and musical numbers; this film is as good as any made by Bob Hope. Band leader and radio personality Kay Kyser discovers, on his wedding day, that he has been drafted. When his new bride finds out, just after they are pronounced "man and wife," that her new husband will have to leave for the army that evening, she replies to a question how she feels now that she's married, "This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me!"Kay tries to instruct recruits but does not do too good of a job. Thus, the army wants him to return to his nightclub as a counterspy -- they suspect there's an enemy agent working there. Naturally, (1) he can't tell his bride about his assignment, (2) his contact is a beautiful women, and (3) Kay and the women are arrested late at night, causing a front page sensation the next day.Kay has to keep telling lies to his bride in order to cover his seeming philandering. Eventually, she thinks everything is just a gag, including her husband's announcement that he's found the spy ring. Even as the bad guys shoot at Kay in his night club, she thinks this is all just fun. Of course, Kay ends up the hero and the two of them FINALLY get to be alone together.This film isn't for people who want fart jokes or expect to burst out laughing every ten seconds. Like most 1940s comedies, there are musical interludes and (horrors!) it's in BW. But if you like Bob Hope films, you'll find that Kay Kyser was every bit as funny.

Whoever said that band leader Kay Kyser was a comedian? This Harold Lloyd produced opus proves that there is nothing funny about him. He looks a little like Harold Lloyd, but that's about it. This RKO comedy is well planned and has a funny premise. Lloyd provided for many belly laugh opportunities. The problem is that Kyser cannot deliver a punch line and is totally inept at physical comedy. William Demarest has a funny bit as a policeman doing battle with Kyser, but most of the humor is crushed by Kyser. Tay Garnett was not the best choice for director; he lets a number of slapstick possibilities escape. He makes the same mistakes in his later "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court". The film would have worked if Lloyd has taken the lead himself, with a director like George Stevens handling the camera. What a pity!

On his way to be married, bandleader Kay Kyser learns from a newspaper article that he has been recalled to Army service. After a hasty wedding he reports to camp only to find that a mistake has been made; what the Army really wants him to do is find out about an espionage ring that is operating out of the Orchid Room, the nightclub where Kyser's big band plays. The unlikely spy's mysterious contact is future Academy Award winner Jane Wyman, and together they help keep the homefront safe for Democracy while Kay tries to keep his neglected bride from bolting.