Filmmaker Henry Griffin recommends Hellzapoppin'
This may well be one of the wackiest movies ever made.
1941
"Any similarity between Hellzapoppin' and a motion picture is purely coincidental." --Disclaimer at the opening of Hellzapoppin'
Hellzapoppin' is easily the strangest musical Hollywood ever produced, a self-conscious meta-movie lost on the road between Tristram Shandy and Schizopolis. For one thing, it opens in the projection booth, with the movie about to begin. Then the "real" picture opens with a musical number set in hell, where we meet Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson, the stage comedians whose eponymous, plotless Broadway revue inspired the movie. After a few gags, they storm through the brimstone onto the soundstage of their movie, Hellzapoppin'. They quarrel with the director and writer, who ultimately sell Olsen and Johnson on the idea that their picture, like all pictures, needs a love story. Then we're in a Long Island mansion, for the love story we've just been pitched. Olsen and Johnson wander through the hijinks like a pair of lost Marx brothers, periodically interacting with the filmmakers (conceiving the movie) and the projectionist (exhibiting and manipulating the completed results). If none of this makes any sense, you're starting to get it. But let me tell you about the best part. Slim Gaillard (the jive-talking guitarist famous for "The Flat Foot Floogie") and his partner, bassist Slam Stewart, dressed as deliverymen, stumble upon a cache of musical instruments. Slim plays the piano with the back of his fingers (one of his old vaudeville tricks; he could also play the guitar and tap-dance simultaneously), attracting jazz musicians from around the mansion, who pick up the other instruments and jam. They strike up a number that attracts the Harlem Congeroo Dancers (dressed like the help), who exploit the Lindy Hop for all it's worth. Suffice to say, it's the most breathtaking, gravity-defying musical number I've ever seen. I'd take it over Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, over the Nicholas Brothers in Stormy Weather, you name it. Hands down.
Henry Griffin is a screenwriter and filmmaker in New Orleans. His films include Mutiny, Tortured by Joy, Flip Mavens, and The Flavor of Plaid. He is currently artist-in-residence at the University of New Orleans.
