Conceited radio announcer irritates everyone else at the station.Conceited radio announcer irritates everyone else at the station.Conceited radio announcer irritates everyone else at the station.
Boris Karloff
- The Phantom
- (as Karloff)
Gene Austin
- Radio Artist
- (as Gene Austin with Candy and Coco)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaBilly Barty (as the infant Gabney), along with Dick Elliott and Florence Enright as his parents, had their scenes cut before release.
- GoofsThe big mystery sketch and the doctor sketch both rely heavily on visual gags which would make them poor choices to be performed on the radio.
- Quotes
Phillip "Gift of Gab" Gabney: Why, your troubles are over. When I handle your liver, I'll bring home the bacon.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood Jr. (1995)
Featured review
Gift of Gag
Painfully unfunny musical comedy from Universal about an arrogant con man (Edmund Lowe) who becomes an even more arrogant radio star. Movies like this remind you how little Universal had going for it at this time outside of their horror pictures. Lowe is about as charismatic as a second-rate William Powell can be. Gloria Stuart has the unfortunate task of playing his love interest. Victor Moore plays one of his nervous nebbish characters I find so irritating. Jack Benny-looking Hugh O'Connell plays Lowe's sidekick. Ethel Waters, Ruth Etting, and Gene Austin sing forgettable tunes. Slightly noteworthy today only for brief cameo appearances by Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Chester Morris, Paul Lukas, and "Sheridan Whiteside" himself, Alexander Woollcott.
The jokes and sketches are all lame. I didn't laugh once. I'm talking "is your refrigerator running" level of humor here. Directed by famed cinematographer Karl Freund but you would never know it as there's no visual style to this at all. Words I was sick of after watching this: stooge, liver, and all variations of gab.
The jokes and sketches are all lame. I didn't laugh once. I'm talking "is your refrigerator running" level of humor here. Directed by famed cinematographer Karl Freund but you would never know it as there's no visual style to this at all. Words I was sick of after watching this: stooge, liver, and all variations of gab.
helpful•44
- utgard14
- Jul 11, 2017
Details
- Runtime1 hour 10 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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