Did You Hear the One About the Traveling Saleslady?

Did You Hear the One About the Traveling Saleslady?
July 14, 1968
Universal
Comedy, Historical
VHS
B-

I would recommend this movie to either people over 40 who have a soft spot for silly '60s sitcoms, since it's basically a big-screen equivalent of what was playing on TV that decade, or to little kids, since there's a lot of slapstick, and the suggestive humor looks pretty mild these days.  (In fact the movie is, despite its title, rated G.)  Not only does it star Phyllis Diller at her zaniest, wearing several stunning outfits designed by Omar of Omaha, and a post-Gilligan Bob Denver, but it's full of once familiar TV faces, including future Good Morning, America host David Hartman as the constable (and the only one even attempting a rural Missouri accent).  Also, the background music is by Vic Mizzy at his mizziest.  (Sorry, no title song this time.)  The movie is set in 1910, but it doesn't particularly resemble Mary Poppins, other than it has a woman from out of town dropping in (by train rather than umbrella) and turning everyone's life upside-down.  The humor is hokey but sometimes funny, and it's not too surprising that director Don Weis helmed Pajama Party and The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini over at AIP.

Kent McCord again has a small role, as he did in John Goldfarb and Girl Happy.  Herb Vigran, who was one of the men on the train with Fred Astaire in Band Wagon, is the baggage man here and would do Lurvy's voice in Charlotte's Web.  Dal McKennon was the bearded gas station attendant in Clambake, is the Civil War veteran here, and would be a bird caller in The Love God? Bob Hastings, who's Denver's rival Lyle Chatterton here, would also be in The Love God?, as Shrader.  Jane Dulo is mostly known for her TV appearances (99's mother on Get Smart, the grandmother on Gimme a Break!, etc.), yet she not only plays Clara Buxton here but would be Miss Flick in the Pufnstuf movie, which was cowritten by one of this movie's cowriters, John Fenton Murray.  George N. Neise is Ben Milford here and would be a network exec in The Barefoot Executive.  Joe Flynn (best known for McHale's Navy) would be just as irritable in Barefoot as he is here playing banker Hubert Shelton.  Speaking of irritable men, this time Charles Lane plays Diller's boss at the player-piano company.

Lloyd Kino, who plays the Chinese laundryman that keeps flinging his laundry basket in the air whenever chaos ensues in "downtown Primrose," was then about 50 but would play "Asian Tourist Husband" almost 40 years later in Miss Congeniality 2.  (He was actually Japanese-American, born in Seattle.)