I Dood It (By Hook or by Crook) (1943)

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Vincente Minnelli went on the record to state that I Dood It was his weakest effort as a director, and I’m not going to argue with him on it. I Dood It mostly spins its wheels around Red Skelton’s mugging for the camera, occasionally pausing from that action to view Eleanor Powell tap dancing up a tornado, before diverting into a third act plot twist that is improbable, unnecessary, and over b... read more

Minnelli complete: music, dance and comedy, Skelton has his own long routines and some funny gestual remarks, some absurds too (he havin a goldmine), and cast is ok (Thurston Hall, Sam Levene), black music is well staged by the "Cabin in the sky" director, (a pitty Louis Armstrong is not the trumpet theat tears down Jericho walls)...

Description: In later years, director Vincente Minnelli would dismiss I Dood It as his worst picture, though a more deserving candidate for that "honor" would be Minnelli's valedictory film A Matter of Time. In this remake of Buster Keaton's Spite Marriage, Red Skelton plays pants-presser Joseph Rivington Reynolds, who develops a crush on glamorous stage star Constance Shaw (Eleanor Powell). "Borrowing" a tuxedo from one of his customers, Joe courts Constance backstage and at a fancy nightclub. Jilted by her fiance, the temperamental Constance marries Joe out of spite, leading to a series of silly situations. In the origi In later years, director Vincente Minnelli would dismiss I Dood It as his worst picture, though a more deserving candidate for that "honor" would be Minnelli's valedictory film A Matter of Time. In this remake of Buster Keaton's Spite Marriage, Red Skelton plays pants-presser Joseph Rivington Reynolds, who develops a crush on glamorous stage star Constance Shaw (Eleanor Powell). "Borrowing" a tuxedo from one of his customers, Joe courts Constance backstage and at a fancy nightclub. Jilted by her fiance, the temperamental Constance marries Joe out of spite, leading to a series of silly situations. In the original Spite Marriage, Buster Keaton proved his worth to the heroine by rescuing her from bootleggers: in the remake, Joe saves Constance from a nest of Nazi spies. Some of the routines-notably a scene in which Joe makes a shambles of a Civil War play, and a lengthy bit in which he puts his drunken bride to bed-were lifted directly from Spite Marriage, no surprise considering that Buster Keaton was one of the I Dood It gag writers. Musical highlights are provided by Lena Horne, Hazel Scott and Jimmy Dorsey, while the film's finale is lifted bodily from the 1936 Eleanor Powell musical Born to Dance. ... (more) (less)