It’s in the Bag! **** (1945, Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Don Ameche, William Bendix, Binnie Barnes) – Classic Movie Review 10,496

Director Richard Wallace’s wisecracking 1945 slapstick screwball comedy It’s in the Bag! [The Fifth Chair] stars baggy-eyed American radio comedian Fred Allen, who gets his best screen role as a flea-circus promoter/ ringmaster called Fred Floogle who receives his uncle’s big ($12 million) but weird inheritance hidden in one of five chairs sold to various people.

It’s in the Bag! is full of good-humoured fun, has infectiously amusing performances from the warm-hearted stars and supporting atrtists, and is propelled with a witty screenplay co-written by Alma Reville (Mrs Alfred Hitchcock) and Jay Dratler, along with a small team of writers, including Lewis R Foster (screen treatment), Fred Allen (screen treatment), and Morrie Riskind (contributing writer).

It is a film of great cheer, with the highpoint being the meeting between radio rivals Allen and Jack Benny, trading amusingly on his penny-pinching image. But also William Bendix is funny as a timid mobster. Guest stars Don Ameche, Victor Moore and Rudy Vallee appear as singing waiters.

It is based on Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov’s 1928 Russian satirical novel The Twelve Chairs, re-filmed under that title The Twelve Chairs by Mel Brooks in 1970 and previously filmed as Keep Your Seats, Please! in 1936 with George Formby.

Also in the cast are Binnie Barnes, Robert Benchley, Jerry Colonna, Sidney Toler, John Carradine, Gloria Pope, William Terry, Minerva Pious, Dickie Tyler, George Cleveland, John Miljan, Ben Welden, Emory Parnell, Jack Baxley, George Chandler, Kernan Cripps, Jay Eaton, Bess Flowers, Brooks Benedict, Don Brodie, Byron Foulger, Edward Gargan, Jack Gargan, Frank Hagney Harry Harvey, Olin Howland, Lloyd Ingraham, Eddie Kane, Mike Lally, Rex Leese, Bert Moorhouse, Forbes Murray, Sarah Padden, Emory Parnell, Marshall Reed, Dewey Robinson, Harry Semels, Harry Strang, Larry Steers, Dan Seymour, Charles Sullivan, Phil Tead, Walter Tetley, Emmett Vogan, Harry von Zell, Max Wagner, Dave Willock, and Marek Windheim.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,496

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com