Der Unglücksrabe

Accident-prone inventor Augustus 'Red' Pirdy (Red Skelton) keeps having accidents. He gets hit by a cab. Ellen Goodrich (Gloria DeHaven) works for the cab company. Red makes friends with the cab driver and Ellen. Eventually, he's driving a cab himself. He had also invented an unbreakable glass called elastic glass. Others are trying to steal it.

The character allows Red to do a lot of physical comedy and his brand of bumbling character. I don't know if this is the best written. A lot of time, it seems to be an excuse for one comedic scenario to the next. This is for the Red Skelton fans in all of us.

And The Yellow Cab Man is a good example. Fitfully funny comedy has Skelton playing his usual bumbler, this time an inventor and cab driver. Most of the funny bits here belong to Skelton, but Walter Slezak has a few nice bits too. Storyline has Skelton inventing bendable glass and a crew of crooks after him for the formula. Edward Arnold is the ringleader. Gloria DeHaven is a blah leading lady here. James Gleason, Paul Harvey, Polly Moran, Herbert Anderson (billed here as Guy and later on TV as Gus), Jay C. Flippen, Charles Lane, Jody Gilbert, Dewey Robinson, and Tiny Jones co-star. The IMDb lists Mae Clarke, but I never spotted her. Arnold is his blustery self, and Slezak was always a terrific comic villain. The finale is memorable, coming out just before Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train," but with similar use of a carousel (in this case a rotating house). Skelton did better on TV, but his film career of 20 years or so (not counting cameos) was not inconsiderable. Skelton worked mostly for MGM, certainly not a studio known for its comedies. He might have fared better at a "lesser" studio. The film is notable also for its plethora of ugly DeSoto taxi cabs!

Red Skelton is an accident-prone, self-taught chemist. He comes up with a safety glass that works beautifully. However crooked lawyer Edward Arnold finds out about it and sabotages the demonstration; his increasingly violent attempts to get the formula will make up the plot of the movie. Gloria DeHaven and James Gleason work for a taxi company and get Skelton a job driving for the company, with disastrous results.

The best comic sequence had Red being left with a child by his mother, resulting in panic about a bomb and Skelton being accused of kidnapping the child. After that, the movie settles down into the inevitable plot, with some brief attempts at comedy that aren't quite as funny; the final chase, while big, only has a few grace notes to it.

Nonetheless, the fast start and some fine comic actors like Walter Slezak, Jay C. Flippen, and Paul Harvey keep this thoroughly afloat. If it isn't as strong as the stuff directed by S. Sylvan Simon, it's a chance for Skelton to do some of his fine clowning. And Miss DeHaven is very cute.

The movies from my youth. This movie which I wish was on DVD! is a great ole movie for a rainy day. Red'd never been better getting away from the bad guys. And of course winning the girl and keeping Unbreakable Soft Glass he invented for his Cab!

This film is better than some of Red's other movie efforts in that he has some better supporting actors in it. Wish Red had a chance to make more movies than he did in his career but shortly after this started his record run on television. That took away a lot of his time for making movies.

This film is quite short at less than 90 minutes but most of the best comedy films are short. They don't get stuck in long & possibly boring sequences & they don't do the same joke over & over again. This film fits that model quite well.

Red was a classic clown who is sorely missed in todays "over the top & down & dirty comedy era". He had a class that shows in films like this one & his old television programs. This film is still a very watchable example of that.