I remember Red mostly from TV in the 50s. To my knowledge I had not seen even one of his films until this one a few years ago.
I found it amusing and well worth the viewing time.
It's also in something of a counterpoint to most of his TV sketch comedy which was too broad and pointless to me even as a child.
One of the interesting features of this film was that it was set in the American Civil War and was mostly a comedy. The film was produced in the late 40s (I think) in a period when most - if not all - Civil War films were completely dramatic ("Gone with the Wind" had a few pointedly amusing lines from Rhett Butler but was a serious film.) The Civil War by then was some 80 years in the past, but the South was still very much the South, so to lampoon the South in any way (even if also the Union received comic dusting) would seem to me as quite a stretch by the producers. Like they were willing to write the South off their distribution lists.
Bottom line, Red was much better than I can ever remember seeing him and that alone was worth it.
I found it amusing and well worth the viewing time.
It's also in something of a counterpoint to most of his TV sketch comedy which was too broad and pointless to me even as a child.
One of the interesting features of this film was that it was set in the American Civil War and was mostly a comedy. The film was produced in the late 40s (I think) in a period when most - if not all - Civil War films were completely dramatic ("Gone with the Wind" had a few pointedly amusing lines from Rhett Butler but was a serious film.) The Civil War by then was some 80 years in the past, but the South was still very much the South, so to lampoon the South in any way (even if also the Union received comic dusting) would seem to me as quite a stretch by the producers. Like they were willing to write the South off their distribution lists.
Bottom line, Red was much better than I can ever remember seeing him and that alone was worth it.