I realize the movie has a fine cast, that it was adapted from a play by Hart and Kaufman, and that the situation -- city family moves to ramshackle house in the country -- is pregnant with possibilities. I didn't find it too funny.
William Keighley's pedestrian direction doesn't help much. There are long pauses following wisecracks and the editing waits for laughs that just aren't coming.
Here's an example of the humor. Jack Benny is shaving in the bathroom of the New York apartment the family is being kicked out of. Franklin Pangborn is the owner and takes some potential renters on a tour of the place. They enter the bathroom and slowly rummage around in it while Benny stands there gaping, his cheeks covered with shaving cream. Plenty of time for a laugh there. A woman opens some drawers and makes a remark about the chest being roomy. Benny glances down at his undershirt. Silence while the audience cracks up. The chest business is so funny that it's resurrected a minute later. This time Keighley's camera moves in for a close up of Benny's indignant face. Hold for laughs.
Maybe I was in a bad mood or hung over or something but it all fell flat for me -- the repetitive gags, no matter how weak to begin with, the pesky neighbor, the handyman who shuffles deliberately about, the seductive neighbor, the falling through the hole in the floor or down the deepest well in the county. "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House" is better done. Even "The Money Pit" and "The Egg and I" are more inventive.
Ann Sheridan mentions that they are on "the old York road". The really was an old York road, a two-day stagecoach trip between Philadelphia and New York City. The road still carries its original name in some places.
William Keighley's pedestrian direction doesn't help much. There are long pauses following wisecracks and the editing waits for laughs that just aren't coming.
Here's an example of the humor. Jack Benny is shaving in the bathroom of the New York apartment the family is being kicked out of. Franklin Pangborn is the owner and takes some potential renters on a tour of the place. They enter the bathroom and slowly rummage around in it while Benny stands there gaping, his cheeks covered with shaving cream. Plenty of time for a laugh there. A woman opens some drawers and makes a remark about the chest being roomy. Benny glances down at his undershirt. Silence while the audience cracks up. The chest business is so funny that it's resurrected a minute later. This time Keighley's camera moves in for a close up of Benny's indignant face. Hold for laughs.
Maybe I was in a bad mood or hung over or something but it all fell flat for me -- the repetitive gags, no matter how weak to begin with, the pesky neighbor, the handyman who shuffles deliberately about, the seductive neighbor, the falling through the hole in the floor or down the deepest well in the county. "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House" is better done. Even "The Money Pit" and "The Egg and I" are more inventive.
Ann Sheridan mentions that they are on "the old York road". The really was an old York road, a two-day stagecoach trip between Philadelphia and New York City. The road still carries its original name in some places.