To Beat the Band: A Bizarre Little Headache

Look, you’re either the kind of person who finds Hugh Herbert’s frantic, fluttery delivery endearing, or you’re going to want to throw your remote through the screen within ten minutes. If you have zero patience for 1930s slapstick logic or people making life-ruining decisions for the sake of a plot, stay away. But if you’re a fan of those weird, forgotten RKO musical-comedies that feel like they were written on a cocktail napkin during a long lunch, you might get a kick out of this.

The plot is basically a migraine. Some heir needs to marry a widow to get his inheritance, so he finds a suicidal guy to marry his girlfriend first? I don't know. It makes about as much sense as the pacing in The Man from Blankley's. The whole thing moves at a speed that suggests everyone involved was trying to catch a train that was leaving in twenty minutes.

The Good, The Bad, and The Flutter

Hugh Herbert is doing his whole woo-woo-woo thing the entire time. It’s relentless. There’s a moment in the second act where he just wanders into a scene and starts twitching, and I swear the other actors look like they’re trying not to break character. It’s not exactly high art, but it has a weird, nervous energy that you don't really see anymore. It reminds me of the manic vibe in Seven Years Bad Luck, just with more musical numbers forced in.

• The musical numbers feel like they were dropped in from an entirely different movie.
• The lighting in the wedding scene is so bright it’s almost offensive.
• I think one of the extras in the background is just reading a newspaper during a dramatic reveal.

The pacing is honestly a mess. It stops dead every time the band starts playing, then jolts back into a conversation about inheritance laws. It’s jarring. It’s like watching a car drive through a pothole every five minutes.

Is it a classic? Absolutely not. Is it better than sitting through another generic modern procedural? Maybe. If you watch it, do it for the weird faces Herbert makes when he thinks no one is looking. The man was clearly fighting his own eyebrows for the entire production.

It’s not a movie you watch for the story. It’s a movie you watch while you’re folding laundry and wondering why Hollywood thought this was a good idea in 1935. 🤷‍♂️