wmorrow59 Movies don't get much sillier than this one. From the looks of it, the folks who made Let's Go Native wanted only to entertain undemanding viewers with a lightweight, zippy comedy, one that offers a few laughs and a handful of musical numbers tossed in at random moments. In this, they succeeded. Whether or not it might still entertain viewers today depends entirely on the individual's taste for buffoonery, disposable songs, and Jack Oakie. I happened to see this film last night at the Museum of Modern Art, where it was shown as part of a retrospective saluting director Leo McCarey. The recently restored print looked and sounded great. The crowd chuckled indulgently at some of the punchlines, and groaned at others. This is the kind of flick obviously aimed at what they used to call the "tired businessman." I'm not a businessman, but I was kind of sleepy and it worked for me.Oakie plays a cab driver named Voltaire—don't ask—whose cab gets wrecked, thanks to a silly Englishman named Pistol (William Austin), who is involved in some way I don't recall at the moment with a costume designer named Joan (Jeanette MacDonald), who is broke, because all her money is invested in a traveling revue. Joan, in turn, is involved with a young man named Wally (James Hall), who was disinherited because of his involvement with her. Wally, for his part, is reluctantly involved with an heiress named Constance (Kay Francis), to whom he was betrothed against his wishes. Of course, none of this matters at all, and never did. We're here for the gags, which are hit-or-miss, and the songs, which sound like they were written on the set just before the cameras rolled.Are there any valid reasons to seek out Let's Go Native? Well, if you enjoy silent era slapstick you'll surely get a kick out of the opening sequence, when Joan's furniture is repossessed by a team of the most inept, accident prone moving men who are not named Laurel or Hardy. And indeed, for this sequence director McCarey employed a number of veteran comics he'd known at the Hal Roach Studio, including Charlie Hall and Harry Bernard. The crew foreman is played by gravel voiced Eugene Palette, also a Roach Studio graduate, who would seldom take on such strenuous roles in his prolific talkie career. If you ever wanted to see him take acrobatic falls and break large objects, here's your chance. Soon afterwards, Oakie's cab gets into a wild chase while Austin hangs from an open car door, and from the looks of it, he did some of his own stunt work. The punchline, when the cab crashes directly into a police station, is right out of the Keystone textbook.You'd think Miss MacDonald would be profoundly out of place in a movie like this one, but she's just as spirited and lively in Let's Go Native as she is in her Lubitsch vehicles, where her material was considerably more polished. Kay Francis, another good sport, appears abruptly mid-way. She's elegantly attired, plays well with others, and even sings a song without embarrassing herself. But for me, the biggest surprise is Jack Oakie. I've seen him in a number of movies without ever becoming a particular fan, and sometimes he's downright annoying, but I have to say he acquits himself well here. He looks remarkably trim, sings three songs, and even dances passably well. As ever, his comic shtick is a matter of taste, but you have to give the guy credit, he carries this picture, and provides much of its entertainment value.The director's guidance can be discerned not only in the slapstick gags with the moving men, but also in a shipboard routine, when a minor conflict between passengers and crew members gradually escalates into a melee, as people grab each other's hats and fling them overboard. (Personally I found this business a little forced, but the audience at MoMA seemed to enjoy it.) But then, when the liner collides with a smaller ship, we're suddenly in a serious situation. The panic feels genuine, and frantic cross-cutting only emphasizes the sharp change in tone. Not to worry, however. No one is hurt, and our principle players wind up on a desert island, where the silliness resumes. There are native girls with Brooklyn accents, and a self-proclaimed King (Skeets Gallagher). Increasingly, the picture feels like a live action Fleischer cartoon. Just as the whole enterprise threatens to run out of gas, a volcano erupts. The island breaks apart. A rescue ship beckons. Plot strands are hastily tied up, and before you know it we're looking at that familiar Paramount mountain logo, only without any lava.Needless to say, director McCarey went on to make far better movies than Let's Go Native. If they'd bothered to hire some decent gag writers to punch up the script, it could have been on par with such classics of wackiness as Million Dollar Legs or We're Not Dressing, both made at Paramount within a few years, each of which it resembles. Even so, this curious flick presumably kept patrons happy at the time. It's like a big box of buttered popcorn, low on nutritional value, but perfectly okay for a summer evening, whether or not you're a tired businessman.

JohnHowardReid This is a movie in which movement is very much confined – although Leo McCarey's extremely skillful direction manages to disguise the fact that it was all filmed in front of an absolutely stationary camera enclosed in a sound-proof booth. But what the ingenious McCarey could not disguise was the washed-out quality of the filmed-under-glass photography. Never mind, if you like the players – and who could resist Jeanette MacDonald, teamed with Kay Francis? – you probably won't notice the consistently dull, murky texture of the toneless photography at all. Mind you, I'm not a Jack Oakie fan. A little of Jack goes a long way with me, and here he is allowed to really hog that stationary camera – especially bad of him when we would have all liked to have seen and heard a lot more of the movie's number one star, Jeanette MacDonald. Nevertheless, the screenplay does boast a few witty lines here and there. And what with Jeanette and Kay, it's not by any means a total loss!

bbmtwist This film has one redeeming grace- Jeanette MacDonald - whose grace, charm and star quality shine through every scene she is in - she takes this seriously, a sign of a great star!There are few films as awful as this one: execrable acting, direction, script, cinematography, sound,editing,special effects - this is the PITS!!!!!!Jeanette is a trouper, tried and true. Like Liz Taylor in Butterfield 8, - "when you know you're in a turkey, give it the best you got, you might be recognized" Even Kay Francis is AWFUL - Oakie is embarrassing. There are 5 songs/musical numbers. Oakie has 3 and Jeanette has 2 - one a duet. All are forgettable. Available prints are washed out and blurry- maybe there is a God after all. For MacDonald fans only - she only made 28 - to think Paramount actually released this debacle - if there was ever a case for shelving, this is it!

bkoganbing I imagine that the average film fan would tell you their leg was being pulled if you told them that Jeanette MacDonald, Jack Oakie, and Kay Francis were the leads in the same film. At the time that Let's Go Native was being made all three were newly signed to Paramount, new because all three of them had their careers made by sound.Let's Go Native has Jeanette in the role of a dress designer with a cash flow problem. She's just designed a bunch of costumes for a review, but she's sunk all her money into it and the creditors and remember this is the Depression, are at her door. The only way she can get paid is go to Buenos Aires and get her money there.Also on the cruise are a taxi driver who's taking it on the lam in order to avoid being sued for an accident and that would be Jack Oakie. And there's society girl Kay Francis and young millionaire James Hall whose father has been contriving to get those two married.A well staged shipwreck given the primitive early sound equipment strands our passengers on a deserted Virgin Island, presided over by Skeets Gallagher and a troop of native women. Everybody then settles down and plays house.Leo McCarey directed Let's Go Native who later directed some comedy classics like Duck Soup, The Awful Truth, and Ruggles Of Red Gap. Let's Go Native is hardly in their class though it has its moments.The score by Richard Whiting and George Marion is serviceable, but not memorable. Nothing here got in Jeanette MacDonald's concert repertoire. Jack Oakie has a couple of numbers he delivers with usual bumptious fashion.Had there been such an Oscar category for special effects, the shipwreck and later earthquake might have gotten Let's Go Native an award. I believe some of the footage is later used in the Bing Crosby-Carole Lombard film, We're Not Dressing.Let's Go Native is an amusing trifle, dated though and not up to what Leo McCarey later gave us.