The Inspector General (film)
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| The Inspector General | |
| Directed by | Henry Koster |
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| Produced by | Jerry Wald, Sylvia Fine |
| Written by | Nikolai Gogol (play) Harry Kurnitz, Philip Papp |
| Starring | Danny Kaye Walter Slezak Elsa Lanchester Barbara Bates Gene Lockhart |
| Music by | Johnny Green Sylvia Fine |
| Cinematography | Elwood Bredell |
| Editing by | Rudi Fehr |
| Release date(s) | December 30, 1949 |
| Running time | 100 minutes |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
The Inspector General is a 1949 musical comedy film. It stars Danny Kaye and was directed by Henry Koster. The film also stars Walter Slezak, Gene Lockhart, Barbara Bates, Elsa Lanchester, and Rhys Williams. Original music by Sylvia Fine and Johnny Green.
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[edit] Premise
The film is loosely based on Nikolai Gogol's play The Inspector General. The plot is re-located from the Russian Empire into an unspecified corrupted country (possibly Hungary or Poland[neutrality disputed]) that suddenly finds itself under the supervision of the First French Empire.
[edit] Plot
Georgi (Danny Kaye), an illiterate member of a wandering band of Gypsies led by Yakov (Walter Slezak) escapes from a travelling medicine show after he innocently lets slip that the elixir they're selling is a fraud. Tired and hungry, he wanders into the small town of Brodny and whilst trying to sample the contents of a horse's feed bag, he's arrested as a vagrant and sentenced to hang the next day by a corrupt police chief, desperate to prove his efficiency.
The town is run by a corrupt Mayor (Gene Lockhart), whose employees and councillors are all his cousins and equally corrupt and incompetent, but they are frightened when they learn that the Inspector General is in their neighborhood, and probably in disguise. They mistake Georgi for the Inspector and ply him with food and drink whilst plotting to have him killed.
Naturally, their plans go awry and Georgi, despite his innocence, discovers how corrupt they really are. And when the real Inspector arrives suddenly, he also realizes that Georgi is the most honest fellow he's met since leaving Budapest. The Inspector General names Georgi the new Mayor of Brodny and presents him the mayoral gold chain, having taken it from the old mayor saying, "We'll put something else around your neck instead." Yakov, who's also wandered into the town and played an important role in Georgi's survival, becomes Georgi's personal servant.
[edit] Soundtrack
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This section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (March 2009) |
Johnny Green won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Score for his work on the film. Kaye's wife Sylvia Fine wrote the original songs "The Inspector General" and "Happy Times", both sung by Kaye in the film. Happy Times was, in fact, the working title of the film.
[edit] Critique
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This section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (March 2009) |
In this movie, Kaye sang such famous lines[neutrality disputed] as "What does an Inspector General do? Inspect generals?" and "And so we drink! But first. . ."
Although this film is significantly different from Gogol's play, it is probably the version of Gogol's story best known to Western audiences. This may be because it changed Gogol's pessimistic ending into a more upbeat, Americanized one in which the Inspector General is a heroic figure, or possibly because no other adaptation of Gogol's play has been produced by a studio with the distribution capabilities of those in Hollywood.
[edit] DVD release
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This section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (March 2009) |
The Inspector General is one of a number of major Hollywood productions from the 1940s and 1950s that have lapsed into the public domain in the United States [1]. As such, the film is available in many "bargain price" DVD releases, usually in varying sound and picture quality.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Complete movie and highlights" (Windows Media Video, RealMedia). thevoiceofreason.com. http://www.thevoiceofreason.com/publicdomain/Movies/InspectorGeneral/IG.html. Retrieved on 2009-03-27. "theVoiceofReason.com believes this movie is in the public domain. If you have any evidence to the contrary please e-mail us urgently."[dubious ]
