Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Martha Wilcox Here we have Henry Fonda playing a lazy guy who is happy to just drift through life. When he answers an advert that earns him $500 and puts him in touch with Don Ameche, we learn that Fonda's character is not someone you can change by arguing with them, but rather by showing them how they should live. It follows the pattern: tell me and I'll forget; show me and I'll remember; demonstrate and I'll buy. If you want to motivate people you cannot do it by arguing with them you have to show and demonstrate to them the right way to do things. We don't have enough role models in daily experience, but we have loads of people who want to change us by criticising us.It's a nice touch when Fonda sees a man eating dinner by himself and he goes over to offer friendship. Realistic you couldn't do that today, but it shows Fonda had his heart in the right place.

calvinnme ...but fun just the same. It is almost escapist entertainment due to the fact that it just ignores the fact that WWII is going on at the time. Don Ameche plays Dwight Dawson, the owner of a school for success in New York City that doesn't really teach anything other than self confidence. Like the Wizard of Oz, he doesn't seem to be passing out anything that people don't have inside already. His business is down, and so he decides to run an ad looking for the biggest failure in America, using it as the basis for a publicity campaign to turn the contest winner into a success via his methods. Even this he does wrong, though, because who he ultimately picks isn't someone who can't get ahead, but someone who is happy with not getting ahead - a guy from Vermont (Henry Fonda as Tad Page) who rents fishing boats in the summer and thinks about summer in the winter.The prize is five hundred dollars and a course at Ameche's business school. Tad is interested in the five hundred dollars only - he wants to buy a new fire engine for his community. However, he is perfectly happy with his life as it is and is not interested in changing. So now Dawson and his fiancée (Lynn Bari as Claire) have to convince Fonda to go to the classes, prevent him from convincing the other students they don't really need these courses to be happy, and get him to be a success.A romantic triangle forms, rather predictable comical consequences ensue - Tad Page rubs off more on New York than New York rubs off on Tad Page, and I really never saw how Tad Page was either really magnificent or a dope.Darryl F. Zanuck, head of Fox studios, was big on message pictures and films with a historical context, and this is a rather rare example of a film done at his studio during his reign that is set in the present day that is not a noir. It's enjoyable stuff with Fonda doing his familiar likable every-man character and with Ameche as the debonair little weasel that you just can't bring yourself to truly dislike - much like a ferret in a tuxedo. A recommended rarity.

blanche-2 A refreshing, funny film about a different kind of American dream - laziness.Dwight Dawson (Don Ameche), peddling his success classes, launches a contest to find the laziest man in America. The plan is to turn the winner into an aggressive, driven success through his class and draw thousands of enrollees. The winner is Tad Page, beautifully portrayed by Henry Fonda. He's a happy man who feels that, though he's not rich, he has everything - he just wants the prize money to buy a fire engine for his town. He has no interest in taking Dawson's class. Then he falls in love - with Dawson's girlfriend (Lynn Bari).This is a delightful movie about a man who has the true secret of life and is able to impart it to many he meets. As the original post indicated, it's a great life lesson and something to think about.The cast - Fonda, Ameche, Bari, Edward Everett Horton, are just great. The birthday party, during which Ameche and Horton try to keep Tad from realizing that Bari is Ameche's girlfriend - was especially funny. Highly recommended.

mr. 880 It will be evident, that any attentive viewer of this movie, will have a thoughtful review of their own past. Moreover, it will cause one to ponder on the concept, "Why have I been going the way that I have been." Slow Down !!! ... Take it easy. There are many people that are in such a rush to get somewhere that they will never get there. Some folks, run Smack-Dab into their destiny on the same road they use to get away from it.