Hellzapoppin’ does in many ways earn its stripes as a classic old comedy. The humor is frequently very sharp, capturing an unhinged wit that in some ways breaks from how you’d expect a film of this era to be. It even outmatches the Marx Brothers, who save for an odd moment here or there for Groucho, didn’t break the fourth wall. Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson don’t even accept that a fourth wall is there, continually destroying it.
The setup of the film is frankly genius, binning the concept of sanity and promising a surrealist anti-film. It’s suggested by our leads that they know this story and that it doesn’t even have a story. Thus, when it proceeds to have a relatively conventional narrative, it feels like the audience has been lied to. This is especially irritating considering that the movie seems to understand that some of its tropes are tired, like a romance. Admittedly, that romance is extremely minimized, but that just proves how unwanted it is. It doesn’t serve a purpose, so it’s just tacked on. Could they not have done a parody or twist on the format? Maybe Shemp Howard’s character of Louie wants to be the romantic lead, and tries to involve himself?
The original concept for the movie by director H. C. Potter fit better with the surrealist theme, so it’s a shame it was changed, especially considering the original ending was much better, though the new one still isn’t bad. As has happened in multiple comedies, a group of black performers get one scene and really steal the show, dancing and cutting the best number here, very jazzy. It feels tonally consistent with the nutty comedy, as opposed to most of the music which is far too straight in execution. That being said, the music is still good in its own right. Unfortunately, there is some sexual assault humor that is about as uncomfortable as it always is.
A more extreme deconstructionist approach could and should’ve been taken. The finale in particular is too like how something like a Three Stooges or Marx Brothers film would end. Imagine things begin getting out of hand for our leads, so they tell Louie to modify the movie in such a way to their advantage, like by removing something someone else has or shaking the film so someone falls down? The opening does pretty much deliver on what you’d want from this concept, even if it essentially is a lot of dropped potential.
SPOILERS
A lot of Chekhov’s guns go unfired, namely Martha Raye as Betty Johnson. Her desires in the movie are basically forgotten about. It wasn’t too surprising to learn that Shemp Howard was added in very suddenly, considering how superfluous he feels. It would’ve made sense to end the movie with him tying off his story, like if he decided to burn the film negative, but instead he just soon stops appearing. At one point, a mess is made where a lot of film is knocked around. I was hoping this would lead to something like the scenes being played out of sequence, as if they got scrambled or damaged. The framing device also doesn’t get much closure, barely featuring the leads. It appears that the originally planned ending would’ve addressed this problem. The happy ending is particularly dull considering the movie had earlier made fun of this story type. You were basically daring us to not care about these characters!
OVERVIEW
While there are issues, Hellzapoppin’ makes itself worth a watch due to its consistently strong wit and its few moments of being truly subversive, mainly in the ending, but as a whole it doesn’t stand as well as it promised.