Time: 84 Minutes
Age Rating: PG
Cast:
Ole Olsen as Himself
Chic Johnson as Himself
Director: H. C. Potter

I watched Hellzapoppin’ when it was shown by my local film society. I had no idea what this movie was about, I was going in completely blind, and I ended up loving it.

Hellzapoppin’ is ahead of its time considering it’s from the early 1940s. It’s a wild ride, anarchic, off the wall unhinged, insane and endlessly entertaining from beginning to end, benefitting from a fast pace. It’s also a satirical, subversive and meta film, full of self aware jokes. While it’s not the first movie to break the fourth wall, Hellzapoppin’ certainly pushed that aspect to a notable degree. The comedy is pretty much perfect, with lots of visual and rapid fire gags.

It’s directed very well by H. C. Potter. It’s full of a lot of great special effects, cartoonish visual gags and stunts, and gets creative, especially with the fourth wall breaks. There’s also some good use of music, mainly with the musical numbers. There’s particularly an outstanding and impressive dance sequence around halfway through, which was one of the highlights of the film.

Hellzapoppin’ is a hilarious, archaic, meta, impressively made and consistently entertaining comedy. I highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t already.