''The Inspector General'' is a 1949 American

Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...

musical

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...

, suggested by the play by Nikolai Gogol. It stars Danny Kaye and was directed by

Henry Koster Henry Koster (born Hermann Kosterlitz, May 1, 1905 – September 21, 1988) was a German-born film director. He was the husband of actress Peggy Moran. Early life Koster was born to Jewish parents in Berlin, Germany. He was introduced to ci ...

. The film also stars

Walter Slezak Walter Slezak (; 3 May 1902 – 21 April 1983) was an Austrian-born film and stage actor active between 1922 and 1976. He mainly appeared in German films before migrating to the United States in 1930 and performing in numerous Hollywood producti ...

, Barbara Bates, and

Elsa Lanchester Elsa Sullivan Lanchester (28 October 1902 – 26 December 1986) was a British-American actress with a long career in theatre, film and television.Obituary '' Variety'', 31 December 1986. Lanchester studied dance as a child and after the F ...

. Original music and lyrics are by the associate producer Sylvia Fine, who was married to Danny Kaye, with Johnny Green credited for musical direction and incidental score.

Premise

The film is loosely based on Nikolai Gogol's play '' The Inspector General''. The plot is re-located from the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

into an unspecified corrupted region of a country that suddenly finds itself under the supervision of the

First French Empire The First French Empire, officially the French Republic, then the French Empire (; Latin: ) after 1809, also known as Napoleonic France, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental E ...

Plot

Georgi ( Danny Kaye), an illiterate member of a wandering band of

Gypsies The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sign ...

led by Yakov (

) escapes from a travelling medicine show after he innocently lets slip that the

elixir ELIXIR (the European life-sciences Infrastructure for biological Information) is an initiative that will allow life science laboratories across Europe to share and store their research data as part of an organised network. Its goal is to bring t ...

they're selling is a fraud. Tired and hungry, he wanders into the small town of Brodny and whilst trying to sample the contents of a horse's

feedbag A feedbag, feed bag, feeding bag, nosebag, or morral, is a bag, filled with fodder, and attached to the head of a horse, enabling it to eat. The main advantages are that only a small amount of the feed is wasted, and it prevents one animal consu ...

, he's arrested as a vagrant and sentenced to hang the next day by a corrupt police chief ( Alan Hale), desperate to prove his efficiency. The town is run by a corrupt Mayor (

Gene Lockhart Edwin Eugene Lockhart (July 18, 1891 – March 31, 1957)"Gene Lockhart"
''The ...

), whose employees and councillors are all his cousins and equally corrupt and incompetent, but they are frightened when they learn that the Inspector General is in their neighborhood, and probably in disguise. The band of officials and the mayor want to protect their town and their lives, so, acting foolishly they seal off every road to keep the inspector from entering their town. They mistake Georgi for the Inspector and ply him with food and drink whilst plotting to have him killed. Yakov wanders into the small town and convinces Georgi to stay on as an inspector general and accept the bribes the officials so willingly throw at him. Of course, Yakov wants to seize Georgi's misfortune and turn it into a new start for his own life. Meanwhile, hearing tales of his legacy and courageous efforts the mayor's wife instantly takes a liking to Georgi, hoping he will fall in love with her and whisk her away from the mayor and his lack of attention to her. However Georgi has fallen in love with a servant and wishes to marry her. Naturally, their plans go awry and Georgi, despite his innocence, discovers how corrupt they really are. And when the real Inspector arrives suddenly, he also realizes that Georgi is the most honest fellow he's met since leaving

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

. The Inspector General names Georgi the new Mayor of Brodny and presents him the mayoral gold chain, having taken it from the old mayor saying, "We'll put something else around your neck." Yakov becomes the new chief of police and Georgi gets the girl of his dreams.

Cast

* Danny Kaye as Georgi *

as Yakov * Barbara Bates as Leza *

as Maria *

Gene Lockhart Edwin Eugene Lockhart (July 18, 1891 – March 31, 1957)"Gene Lockhart"
''The ...

as The Mayor * Alan Hale as Kovatch *

Walter Catlett Walter Leland Catlett (February 4, 1889 – November 14, 1960) was an American actor and comedian. He made a career of playing excitable, meddlesome, temperamental, and officious blowhards. Career Catlett was born on February 4, 1889, in S ...

as Colonel Castine * Rhys Williams as Inspector General

Score

Johnny Green won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Score for his work on the film. Kaye's wife Sylvia Fine wrote the original songs "The Inspector General" and "Happy Times," both sung by Kaye in the film. "Happy Times" was, in fact, the working title of the film.

Reception

Box Office

According to Warner Bros records the film earned $2,154,000 domestically and $1,756,000 foreign.

Copyright status

''The Inspector General'' is one of a number of major Hollywood productions from the 1940s and 1950s that have lapsed into the

public domain in the United States Works are in the public domain if they are not covered by intellectual property rights (such as copyright) at all, or if the intellectual property rights to the works have expired. All works first published or released in the United States b ...

. The last copyright holder was

United Artists Television United Artists Television (UATV) was an American television production/distribution studio of United Artists Corporation that was formed on New Year's Day (January 1), 1958. The company is remembered for producing series such as ''This Man Dawso ...

(later

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 ...

, and finally

Turner Entertainment Turner Entertainment Company is an American multimedia company founded by Ted Turner in 1986. Purchased by Time Warner in 1996 as part of its acquisition of Turner Broadcasting System (TBS), the company was largely responsible for overseeing th ...

) and later absorbed by TimeWarner now

WarnerMedia Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States. It was originally established in 1972 by ...

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Inspector General, The 1949 films 1949 musical comedy films American musical comedy films Films based on The Government Inspector Films directed by Henry Koster Warner Bros. films Films scored by Johnny Green Films with screenplays by Harry Kurnitz Films with screenplays by Ben Hecht 1940s English-language films 1940s American films