Main Cast: Red Skelton, Eleanor Powell, Lena Horne, Patricia Dane, Richard Ainley, Sam Levene
Release Year: 1943
Country: US
Run Time: 102 minutes
Plot
In later years, director Vincente Minnelli would dismiss I Dood It as his worst picture, though a more deserving candidate for that "honor" would be Minnelli's valedictory film A Matter of Time. In this remake of Buster Keaton's Spite Marriage, Red Skelton plays pants-presser Joseph Rivington Reynolds, who develops a crush on glamorous stage star Constance Shaw (Eleanor Powell). "Borrowing" a tuxedo from one of his customers, Joe courts Constance backstage and at a fancy nightclub. Jilted by her fiance, the temperamental Constance marries Joe out of spite, leading to a series of silly situations. In the original Spite Marriage, Buster Keaton proved his worth to the heroine by rescuing her from bootleggers: in the remake, Joe saves Constance from a nest of Nazi spies. Some of the routines-notably a scene in which Joe makes a shambles of a Civil War play, and a lengthy bit in which he puts his drunken bride to bed-were lifted directly from Spite Marriage, no surprise considering that Buster Keaton was one of the I Dood It gag writers. Musical highlights are provided by Lena Horne, Hazel Scott and Jimmy Dorsey, while the film's finale is lifted bodily from the 1936 Eleanor Powell musical Born to Dance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Those looking for some of the expected Vincente Minnelli magic won't find much of it in his I Dood It, but since has was brought on after filming had begun to salvage the project, that's to be expected. Dood may have been credited to Minnelli as director, but he was able to bring little of his customary grace and taste to the proceedings, which are firmly dominated by star Red Skelton and, to a somewhat lesser extent, by Eleanor Powell. It's not that Powell doesn't try to make the same impact as Skelton. She's in there with all her heart, giving that zillion-taps-a-minute that are expected of her, singing quite well and acting the tripe given to her as best she can. The problem is that Dood leans inexorably toward Skelton, so Powell's efforts don't have the effect they should. Skelton is certainly amusing, but he needs top drawer material, and he is definitely lacking that here. The gags are often good, but because the story and screenplay are so tired, they don't have a real context and therefore don't land the way they need to. There are some fine individual moments, including some beauteous singing by the beauteous Lena Horne, but the whole of the haphazard, sloppy Dood is very definitely less than the sum of its parts. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Cedric Gibbons - Art Director, Bobby Connolly - Choreography, Irene Sharaff - Costume Designer, Vincente Minnelli - Director, Robert J. Kern - Editor, George Stoll - Musical Direction/Supervision, Count Basie - Songwriter, Lew Brown - Songwriter, Gene de Paul - Songwriter, Vernon Duke - Songwriter, Sammy Fain - Songwriter, Ralph Freed - Songwriter, John Latouche - Songwriter, Cole Porter - Songwriter, Don Raye - Songwriter, Leo Robin - Songwriter, Ted Fetter - Songwriter, Richard Myers - Songwriter, Ray June - Cinematographer, Jack Cummings - Producer, Sig Herzig - Screenwriter, Fred Saidy - Screenwriter
Skelton plays an "average Joe" who is madly in love with Constance Shaw (Eleanor Powell), a big Broadway musical star. Much to his surprise, Constance agrees to marry him, thinking he's a rich mining tycoon, and much of the film deals with the consequences of this misunderstanding.
Powell's most notable performance in the film comes near the beginning when she executes a complex dance routine involving lariats and cowboys. Powell, in her introduction to the book Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance, recalled that she knocked herself unconscious while rehearsing a stunt for this sequence involving a rope and ultimately had to don a football helmet to protect herself. The final dance scene with Powell was lifted from an earlier movie, "Born To Dance", some 9 years previous.
Skelton and Powell had previously worked together in 1942's Ship Ahoy. In that film, they appeared with Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy's brother.
This was Powell's final starring role in an MGM film. After this, she would make a cameo appearance in Thousands Cheer, play a lead role in the non-MGM film Sensations of 1945, and make another cameo in the 1950 MGM film, Duchess of Idaho before retiring from the screen for good.
The rather ungrammatical title was from one of Red Skelton's radio catchphrases of the day. In 1942 Jack Owens, The Cruising Crooner, wrote a song for Skelton based on it: "I Dood It! (If I Do, I Get A Whippin')", but that song does not appear in this film.
