Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

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

bkoganbing The Yellow Cab Man is another of Red Skelton's madcap big screen comedies where Red plays an eccentric inventor who is also accident prone. So accident prone is he that he can't get insurance no way, no how. So what does he become in lieu of a modest settlement and for signing a quitclaim given him by agent Gloria DeHaven, a cabdriver for the Yellow Cab company.Because of his tendency for the unfortunate, Red's invented himself a version of plexiglass, a shatter proof glass he calls elastic glass. Can't break it short of a bullet being fired into it. But he hasn't copyrighted the formula. And some unscrupulous people led by bottom feeding shyster lawyer Edward Arnold and medicine show charlatan Walter Slezak will do anything to steal the formula. Red's a true babe in the woods in this film, but it's amazing how schnooks like him get some really good looking women to fall for him like Gloria DeHaven. Arnold and Slezak look like they're having a great old time. Usually both of them when they play villains exude a quiet menace, but here they are both outrageously overacting and the audience joins in on the fun.The Yellow Cab Man is a treat for Red Skelton's legion of fans.

vincentlynch-moonoi It's often been said that MGM didn't "get" comedy. And with the scripts they would hand Red, again and again they proved that to be true. They could put really funny things in their forte -- musicals. But it was rare they really understood what makes a great comedy.For a change, here they got it right. I've always thought this to be the best of the Red Skelton comedy films, and my sister would have agreed when she was about 7 years old and we watched this on television. She was in absolute hysterics!But there's more to this film than slapstick (although that's what my sister remembers). Red always had the ability to play pathos, and he does here as the accident-prone inventor of unbreakable glass, which he tries to sell to the Yellow Cab Company, hoping that they will make unbreakable windshields. Of course, with Red being accident prone, his demonstration of his invention is a disaster. It's one mishap after another. But the bad guys are always at hand trying to take advantage. There's Edward Arnold (once a leading man himself), here reduced to a con-man shyster lawyer (but he's so good at it!). Then there's his accomplice -- Walter Slezak, as a crocked psychiatrist...and he leads Red into a fantasy sequence that's genuinely clever, original, and very funny. And then there's the hilarious finale at the Home Show. But what also works in this film is Red's sympathetic performance, silly little bits, and his romantic interest with Gloria DeHaven, who does quite nicely here. And then there's character actors James Gleason and Jay C. Flippen. Yes, MGM got it right this time, and gave Red one of his best roles. One for the DVD shelf! If you only buy one Red Skelton movie on DVD...this is the one!

dougdoepke Some belly laughs in this Skelton madcap. As usual Red plays a good-hearted schlemiel who stumbles from one mishap to the next, but somehow muddles through to win the girl (Gloria DeHaven) and the climax. Here he's an amateur inventor and Yellow Cab man battling veteran baddies Walter Slezak and Edward Arnold.A great job by the writers. The comedy set-ups are consistently funny and inventive from the mine-field opening of Red walking down the street to the whirlwind close at the L A Home Show . (Forget the muddled story-line which is just a handy post to hang the hi-jinks on.) This was just the kind of slapstick that Skelton could turn into a wild and crazy romp, and he does. .Catch the great comedic architecture in the early sequence that builds hilariously from the baby-sitting beginning to the nine-one-one close. Too bad this kind of engineering has largely disappeared from today's movie screen. Then too, the crib scene with Red playing both his toddler self and infant sister amounts to 60 second knee-slapper.In fact, there are a number of special effects scenes that work up more than a few chuckles. But the North Pole dream has something of a nightmarish undercurrent as does Red's getting shoved into the mixer.I guess my only complaints are the cheapness of the street sets and the dull-grayish quality of the filming (at least, in my copy). Coming from big-budget MGM, such cost-cutters affecting overall quality seem surprising.Nonetheless, this is a fine little post-war flick whose futuristic house at the Home Show expresses something of the surging spirit of a 1950's America then on the economic upswing.

raskimono Skelton was never as popular as the other leading comics of his day including Hope, Crooner/Comic Crosby, Danny Kaye, Abbott and Costello for a while and many others but his movies made money as this one did too. The concept of this movie is not original but congenial and in an era of remakes would a nice, tidy vehicle for a Ben Stiller type. Watching Skelton convincingly bungle and bumble his way through scene after scene is a complete hoot. The jokes come naturally and to me, he is better at delivering these jokes than Bob Hope ever was. The mad cap finale is generally fun in this warm two hander with Gloria de haven. And direction is generally snappy and on point as our cab driver causes obvious hijinks in this on the nose but funny tale.