Killer Dill

Stu Erwin is the world's meekest lingerie salesman. He's successful, but idiot lawyer Frank Albertson borrows money from him and never repays it, and steals Anne Gwynne from under his hesitant nose. He is mistaken for Public Enemy 21 and made to act as the figurehead leader of a gang run by Milburn Stone.

The question of whether you'll like this movie depends on if you enjoy Erwin's parented, shy and slow character. I don't. That aside, it seems to be a decently run if not particularly original comedy with some decent comic performers, including Mike Mazurki, Dorothy Granger, and Dewey Robinson. Frank Albertson is mostly annoying.

Usually the second banana, this time it's Stuart Erwin playing the lead, a salesman who accidently bumps up against the mob boss Moronie. He spends the whole first part of the film trying to tell a girl how he feels, but something always interrupts them. He vows to be more assertive, but clashes with the big boss before that can get straightened out. The usual goofy plot of mistaken identity. Bodies that appear and disappear. It's pretty silly. but entertaining if you just go along for the ride. Directed by Lewis Collins; Collins had started in silents, and moved into talkies. Died young .. a heart attack at 55. This is a Nivel Pictures/Max King Production... but I couldn't find anything on Nivel Pictures (Levin... backwards ?). Max King ony made seven films in the 1940s. not much on him either. Film showing on Moonlight Movies channel. It's pretty good. and some fun old scenery of Los Angeles.

Killer Dill is similar to another movie I've seen recently, "Babyface Morgan" about a regular schmo who is somewhat placed into the criminal underworld by accident, to hilarious results! In Killer Dill's case though, the results are pretty lame though. A regular guy, played by Stuart Ervin, is fighting with his brother for the attention of a goil. She likes adventure in her men, and Ervin isn't cutting it. However, when he notices that she kind of gets off on Gangster men, he tries to be like one, and gets way over his head when the local Mafioso lay the blame on him for an inside whack job on Public Enemy # 21. (Possibly the best joke in the movie). During the trial, he's found innocent, but like O.J., Blake et al, everyone believes he's actually Guilty! So he has to prove he's guilty before there's another inside whack job, this time on him.. This is just OK I guess. The plot is somewhat blah, the humor somewhat silly, and there's some rather unnecessary characters placed for length. (Like the curiously, for no reason whatsoever, Scottish (!!) undertakers) and a rather lack of energy throughout this.

Salesman Johnny Dill (Stuart Erwin) gets confused for a mob boss. Much alleged hilarity ensues.

This will be short and sweet - I didn't care for Killer Dill. The main character and his supposed comic antics really annoyed me. Very little of it worked. And, to make matters worse, I didn't care for Erwin in the Dill role. He doesn't have the physical presence necessary to play the heavy. The writing is lame and childish with Dill going in and out of tough guy mode and none of the other characters seeming to notice. Ugh! There's not much here to recommend.

The only real highlights for me were Mike Mazurki and Milburn Stone. Both gentlemen acquitted themselves well and deserved to be in something better than this.

Overall, Killer Dill is an immediately forgettable film. I think my rating is more than generous and based almost solely on Mazurki and Stone.

4/10.

During the Prohibition era, mild-mannered underwear salesman Stu Erwin just happens to be an exact double for a notorious gangster, and winds up as the head of the local mob. Mistaken identity was a pretty hoary old plot device even for 1947, and director Lewis D. Collins does absolutely nothing new with it. Collins spent most of his career churning out cheap B westerns for the lower-rung studios and the even lower-rent independent states rights market, and it shows--the film has the raggedy, cheesy and rushed look of an ultra-cheap oater, and Collins shoots it like one: fast. There's no pacing, no build-up, no nothing, just a hurried succession of stale jokes, contrived situations and lackluster performances. Production values are almost nil--every time someone closes a door you expect to see the set come crashing down--and although it's supposed to take place during the Prohibition era of the 1920s, all the clothing and dialogue are strictly from the '40s, which makes you wonder why they bothered to set it during the 1920s in the first place. That's just one of the many downsides of this alleged "comedy". Do yourself a favor and don't bother to find out what the rest of them are. Skip this one.