The Inspector General

1949

Comedy / Musical / Romance

Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 79% · 11 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 79% · 5K ratings
IMDb Rating 6.7/10 10 3821 3.8K

corruption escape mayor snake oil medicine show

Plot summary

An illiterate stooge in a traveling medicine show wanders into a strange town and is picked up on a vagrancy charge. The town's corrupt officials mistake him for the inspector general whom they think is traveling in disguise. Fearing he will discover they've been pocketing tax money, they make several bungled attempts to kill him.

Director

Henry Koster Photo
Henry Koster

Top cast

Marc Krah Photo
Marc Krah as Gypsy
Norman Leavitt Photo
Norman Leavitt as Lazlo
Walter Catlett Photo
Walter Catlett as Col. Castine
Barbara Pepper Photo
Barbara Pepper as Buxom Villager
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
937.08 MB
1280*960
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
30 fps
1 hr 41 min
Seeds 41
1.7 GB
1920*1080
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 42 min
Seeds 81

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by 7 / 10

A splendid time is guaranteed for all

I loved it as a kid and i love it even more now. This is a classic movie about mistaken identity, which inspired so many later movies. A tramp (Danny Kaye) is mistaken for the Inspector General by the corrupt mayor and his equally corrupt officials.I find Danny Kaye one of the best performers of our times and he has given one of his best performances here. Look at him rolling like a dog (a scene so touching) or imitating a fish in the beginning or singing 'drink gypsy' later on. An institution in himself. The movie can be hilarious, very touching, delightful and thrilling at the same time. It's a treasure.
Reviewed by 6 / 10

Danny Kaye show with his particular talent as a great comedian about an issue of mistaken identities

Freely based on Nikolai Gogol's play , "The Inspector General" about a false Inspector who comes to examine a little corrupt town . It deals with an illiterate called Giorgi (Danny Kaye, able to tongue twist faster than anyone else) along with his boss (Walter Slezak) , both of whom are wandering and acting as medicine men into a provincial town wherein panic . Then Giorgi's detained for vagrancy charge but he's misidentified as a feared Inspector General who comes to check up on them and whom the corrupter town officers (the Mayor : Gene Lockhart married to Elsa Lanchaster and another officer played by Alan Hale) think is secretly moving in disguise . Later on , they make various bungled tryings to murder him . Meanwhile , Giorgi falls in love with a beautiful maid (Barbara Bates) who is serving to the Mayor. The film is a Danny Kaye recital , he sings , dances , stooges , makes acrobatics , tongue twister and puts faces and grimaces . It's a pretty amusing farce suggested by a play by the Russian writer Gogol with the master comedy actor and it displays much choreography and musical numbers . Sylvia Fine , Kaye's wife , is the lyricist , composer , besides associate producer and dialogs writer , and responsible for many of the best known musical routines and songs for her husband . The best gags are developed on the Charles Chaplin imitations when Kaye is having lunch ; the events in the crowded room with several hosts that seem Marx brothers sketches ; in addition , the comic numbers in the military training headquarter . Support cast is frankly good , such as Elsa Lanchester , Barbara Bates , Gene Lockhart , Alan Hale , Néstor Paiva and Rhys Williams , among others . The motion picture was well directed by Henry Koster . Picture is a Kaye vehicle , and many consider his best comedy , he's an authentic comedian and real farceur . If you like Kaye's crazy interpretation , you will most definitely enjoy this one .
Reviewed by 7 / 10

Oh, I have no wife. None of my family had wives. My father didn't like wives. I mean, my mother didn't like my father's wives.

Danny Kaye was a wonderful performer, he would sing, dance, tell jokes, turn his face into rubber and just generally come off as a quality humanitarian. The Inspector General showcases all of those talents. Directed by Henry Koster, The Inspector General is loosely adapted from Nikolai Gogol's classic Russian story, and it finds Kaye as a stooge of Walter Slezak's iffy tonic peddler who is mistaken by iffy officials of a small Russian town for the much feared and respected Inspector General. Cue mistaken identity mayhem as the music numbers, gags, visual contortions and all round slapstick ensues. Also along for the ride are Elsa Lanchester, Alan Hale, Barbara Bates and Gene Lockhart.It's more a safe and solid Kaye movie for the family to enjoy, rather than a high end classic like The Court Jester, but sometimes the high energy jinks of Kaye is all you need to lift the blues away. 7/10
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