Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Justina The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

fcasanova First saw this movie on late 1950's TV, about 10 years after it was made. As a kid, I thought it was hilarious. Just watched again in 2011 and wondered if I would perceive it to be as funny as I did 50 years ago. I still love it. Not as much as a 10 year old perhaps, but Skelton can hold his own in his comedic genius through the decades. Of course the writing team of Frank & Panama also later wrote Danny Kaye's "The Court Jester" where they use the same tongue-twister rhyming lines to make hilarious running gags... and the hero's continuous use of secret code questions...to all the wrong people. Makes me want to revisit all the old Red Skelton movies of the late 40's and early 50's.

timniles I remember Red mostly from TV in the 50s. To my knowledge I had not seen even one of his films until this one a few years ago.I found it amusing and well worth the viewing time.It's also in something of a counterpoint to most of his TV sketch comedy which was too broad and pointless to me even as a child.One of the interesting features of this film was that it was set in the American Civil War and was mostly a comedy. The film was produced in the late 40s (I think) in a period when most - if not all - Civil War films were completely dramatic ("Gone with the Wind" had a few pointedly amusing lines from Rhett Butler but was a serious film.) The Civil War by then was some 80 years in the past, but the South was still very much the South, so to lampoon the South in any way (even if also the Union received comic dusting) would seem to me as quite a stretch by the producers. Like they were willing to write the South off their distribution lists.Bottom line, Red was much better than I can ever remember seeing him and that alone was worth it.

raskimono Red Skelton shines in this funny stereo-typical movie from the forties. All in all, the movies feels as though it was written for Bob Hope whom I personally dislike in the movies. Skelton and Hop both used double entendres and fast quipped one-liners to good effect. The funny plot includes a union hotel bellhop who mistakenly finds and captures the most dangerous spy of the confederates during the civil war and is asked by superiors to impersonate him because if he were caught, it would not matter, he being dispensable. So start the laughs and they come at a minute a dime including a classic scene at a hospital involving a chase and a couple of dentists. Brilliant. Arlene Dahl does what she does and that is look extremely beautiful. It is said Buster Keaton worked behind the scenes on this movie and some have compared it to the General but I don't see the resemblance. The movie it most resembles is Bob hope's The Paleface, a scathological spoof of genres as this movie is. When you get to see it, have fun.

NativeTexan Red Skelton is brilliant both physically and verbally. His tongue-twisting tour de force ("The map is in the packet of the pocket of the jacket...") predates and probably inspired Danny Kaye's similarly brilliant speech in "The Court Jester. If this is indeed a remake of the Buster Keaton classic, "The General," it certainly does honor to its predecessor.