I enjoy Joe E. Brown's antics even if he's rather dated in his style of comedy and pretty much the same character in all the films he made at Warner Brothers from 1929 to 1936 and RKO Radio, Columbia and Republic afterwards. He had heart added to his familiar persona for the color remake of "Show Boat" and stole the end of "Some Like It Hot" with the final line that 1959 audiences didn't see coming. But for this comedy (where Damon Runyeon was one of the screenwriters), he ended up with a rather macabre plot that gives a big "Huh?" on top of his trademark yowel.
His character is a good honest man but has gone a little bit bonkers by getting himself involved with gangsters after going into debt gambling. His fiancee Alice White starts seeing other men on the side because of this sudden change so Brown decides to pay off his debts in the quickest way he can figure out, by selling his body to science. The hitch is that the wacky scientist wants his body in one months time so Brown must think of a clever way of bumping himself off without destroying his cranium which is all the doctor basically wants him for.
Now if that isn't a "Huh?" type plot, I don't know what is. There are a lot of very funny moments, particularly an incident with a can of tear gas going back and forth while Brown and White are exploring the other colors of their relationship while they are in the back of a armored truck being driven by the stereotypically dumb mobsters. Veteran vaudeville performer Irene Franklin steals every moment she's on screen as White's outrageous mother Toodles. Otherwise, this film is just a very questionable entry in the list of Warner Brothers 1930's programmers.
His character is a good honest man but has gone a little bit bonkers by getting himself involved with gangsters after going into debt gambling. His fiancee Alice White starts seeing other men on the side because of this sudden change so Brown decides to pay off his debts in the quickest way he can figure out, by selling his body to science. The hitch is that the wacky scientist wants his body in one months time so Brown must think of a clever way of bumping himself off without destroying his cranium which is all the doctor basically wants him for.
Now if that isn't a "Huh?" type plot, I don't know what is. There are a lot of very funny moments, particularly an incident with a can of tear gas going back and forth while Brown and White are exploring the other colors of their relationship while they are in the back of a armored truck being driven by the stereotypically dumb mobsters. Veteran vaudeville performer Irene Franklin steals every moment she's on screen as White's outrageous mother Toodles. Otherwise, this film is just a very questionable entry in the list of Warner Brothers 1930's programmers.