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Meet the Baron | |
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Directed by | Walter Lang |
Written by |
Norman Krasna Herman J. Mankiewicz |
Produced by | David O. Selznick |
Starring |
Jack Pearl Jimmy Durante Edna May Oliver ZaSu Pitts Ted Healy Moe Howard Larry Fine Curly Howard |
Cinematography | Allen G. Siegler |
Edited by | James E. Newcom |
Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date |
|
Running time | 68 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Meet the Baron is a 1933 American pre-Code comedy film starring Jack Pearl, Jimmy Durante, Edna May Oliver, ZaSu Pitts, Ted Healy and His Stooges ( Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard). The title of the film refers to Pearl's character of Baron Munchhausen, which he made famous on his radio show. [1]
A couple of bunglers (Jimmy Durante and Jack Pearl) are abandoned in the jungles of Africa by Baron Munchausen. A rescue team mistake Pearl for the missing Baron, and take the two of them back to America where they receive a hero's welcome.
The phony Baron is invited to speak at Cuddle College, run by Dean Primrose (Edna May Oliver). There he falls for ZaSu Pitts and meets three crazy janitors ( The Three Stooges), and faces exposure as a fraud.
The film was a box-office disappointment for MGM. [2]
"Clean as a Whistle", a musical number risqué for its time which involves a group of women in a shower, was later featured in the 1994 MGM retrospective That's Entertainment! III as an example of Pre-Code Hollywood.