The first half of this intelligent and crafty comedy is a lot of fun, even though it is obvious from the beginning that the title really doesn't fit this movie. Caesar isn't anyone important to the plot, simply the wise-cracking parrot that genius Ronald Colman and his spinster sister Barbara Britton are taking care of until they can find the rightful owner. Neither is the beautiful blonde the narrator introduces us to right after the credits. This causes instant head scratching of why that opening scene would be there or why the film would be named after a parrot that hardly appears in the film. (Even the funny parrot who shows up towards the end of "The Fuller Brush Girl" has a purpose of being there; Caesar is more of a gimmick.) But I digress. What works about this comedy is Ronald Colman, and from the beginning you can't help but like this genius, who unlike Clifton Webb in "Sitting Pretty", manages to stay "fairly" humble about his intelligence. His wisecracking isn't sarcastic, just a sardonic comment on how the media seems to have the goal of turning everybody into fools who think that knowing the answer to 2+2 is the extent of necessary knowledge. When he views a quiz program, he is disgusted by the patronizing host (Art Linkletter) and the easy question given to a costumed Cleopatra (from Brooklyn). After being turned down for a job with the show's sponsor's owner (a droll Vincent Price), Colman vows revenge and goes onto the game show. Winning week after week, he decides he is going to bankrupt Price, and that sets the future king of horror on a mission to destroy Colman.
Thus steps in Celeste Holm, as a nurse named "Flame", who sets out to break Colman's heart and force him to loose the jackpot. That's unfortunately where the mood of the film changes and it slows down, not quite to a snail's pace, but far from where the first half was going. The film is intelligently written though, forecasting the not far off quiz show scandals that rocked the media a few years later. In spite of how her entrance changes the mood of the film, Holm is funny in a dead-pan manner that had made her a sensation on Broadway several years before as Ado Annie in "Oklahoma!". She takes what is essentially a one-dimensional character and rises above the material she was given. It is Colman and Price who get acting honors here. Like Karloff and Lugosi, Price was a horror film veteran who showed he could do a lot more when given the chance, especially when given funny material. And when he starts quoting Shakespeare, it forecasts his role in the 1973 cult classic "Theatre of Blood".
Thus steps in Celeste Holm, as a nurse named "Flame", who sets out to break Colman's heart and force him to loose the jackpot. That's unfortunately where the mood of the film changes and it slows down, not quite to a snail's pace, but far from where the first half was going. The film is intelligently written though, forecasting the not far off quiz show scandals that rocked the media a few years later. In spite of how her entrance changes the mood of the film, Holm is funny in a dead-pan manner that had made her a sensation on Broadway several years before as Ado Annie in "Oklahoma!". She takes what is essentially a one-dimensional character and rises above the material she was given. It is Colman and Price who get acting honors here. Like Karloff and Lugosi, Price was a horror film veteran who showed he could do a lot more when given the chance, especially when given funny material. And when he starts quoting Shakespeare, it forecasts his role in the 1973 cult classic "Theatre of Blood".