tavm
I had discovered this obscure Red Skelton movie on YouTube recently and just decided to watch it now because of many glowing reviews on this site. In a nutshell, Red is an accident-prone fella who eventually becomes a cab driver after initially being hit by one! He's also an inventor with some crazy contraptions in his apartment. I'll stop there and just say this was very funny from beginning to end. There's an unusual distorted sequence that must have turned some minds on at the time and a hilarious end chase sequence taking place in a demonstration home. So on that note, I highly recommend The Yellow Cab Man. P.S. Since I always like to cite when someone that was in my favorite movie-It's a Wonderful Life-is in something else, here it's Charles Lane-the one who told Mr. Potter he'd one day work for George Bailey-who plays an insurance man who rejects an offer to insure Mr. Skelton!
edwagreen
Inventor Red Skelton, prone to accidents, creates a riot in this 1950 film. Gloria DeHaven, as his girl, is along for the ride.Walter Slezak, Jay C. Flippen and Edward Arnold are at their evil best. The last scene is similar to a Marks Brothers or 3 Stooges like films.I loved the part with the ambulance chasers and the attorneys. Was this ever so true to life!The film has familiar themes of slapstick comedy, accidents beyond belief, and a little brat of a child who causes mayhem with the police and traffic departments.The zany Red Skelton was wonderful at this type of film. The only thing is that you're familiar with these things and can easily predict what's coming next.
Robert J. Maxwell
Red Skelton is a cab driver who is accident prone. He has a girl friend of sorts, Gloria DeHaven, and some buddies at the Yellow Cab Company in Los Angeles, including James Gleason. A cabal of bad guys -- Edward Arnold, Walter Slezak, and assorted hoods with names like "Gimpy" -- find out that Skelton has invented an invaluable substance, elastic glass, for use in automobile windows. The villains first con Red, then drug him, then chase him through a vast display of "modern homes" and appliances.I laughed all the way through this when I was a kid, cheering and clapping along with the others. It strikes me as silly at times, now that I'm older and have much more sophisticated tastes. (Now I find Lady Gaga funny.) However, there's no argument about it's being a successful farce. The climax has a whirling carousel of a modern house going berserk -- before "Strangers on a Train" -- throwing bad guys this way and that. Slezak plays an evil doctor who tries to hide his hypodermic syringe full of truth serum in a toaster. The toaster tips over and ejects its contents point first, hitting Slezak in the buns. If you don't find that amusing, you should not watch this.Red is his usual gibbering self. DeHaven is pouty and pretty. We don't usually associate Edward Arnold with comedy and, in fact, he plays his familiar evil self here, only slightly over the top, gruff, blustering, phonily affable. Slezak is quite good. He was in a number of comic roles and was almost always effective in them.
DKosty123
This film is better than some of Red's other movie efforts in that he has some better supporting actors in it. Wish Red had a chance to make more movies than he did in his career but shortly after this started his record run on television. That took away a lot of his time for making movies.This film is quite short at less than 90 minutes but most of the best comedy films are short. They don't get stuck in long & possibly boring sequences & they don't do the same joke over & over again. This film fits that model quite well.Red was a classic clown who is sorely missed in todays "over the top & down & dirty comedy era". He had a class that shows in films like this one & his old television programs. This film is still a very watchable example of that.
AD
