Million Dollar Legs

Plot synopsis:
While visiting the mythical country of Klopstokia on business, brush salesman Migg Tweeny (Jack Oakie) collides with a young woman (Susan Fleming) on the street and the two fall instantly in love. Her name is Angela—all the women in Klopstokia are named Angela, and the men are named George—and she is the daughter of Klopstokia's President (W. C. Fields), whose country is bankrupt, and who relies upon his great physical strength to dominate a cabinet that is conspiring to overthrow him. Tweeny, hoping to win the hand of The President's daughter in marriage, presents him with a plan to remedy Klopstokia's financial woes: The President is to enter the 1932 Summer Olympics, win the weightlifting competition, and collect a large cash reward that has been offered to medalists by Tweeny's employer. Tweeny then sets out to find athletes to make up Klopstokia's Olympic team, and quickly discovers that the country abounds in athletes of preternatural abilities. The team, with Tweeny as their trainer, boards a steamship bound for America.
Meanwhile, the rebellious cabinet ministers, who are determined to sabotage Klopstokia's Olympic bid, have enlisted the services of "Mata Machree, the Woman No Man Can Resist" (Lyda Roberti), a Mata Hari-based spy character who sets out to destroy the Klopstokian team's morale by seducing each athlete and then setting them against each other in a collective brawl. Her efforts have the intended effect: when the team arrives in Los Angeles they are in no condition to compete. After a pep talk from Tweeny fails to inspire them, Angela tracks down Mata, defeats her in an underwater fight, and forces a confession from her before the assembled team, which restores the athletes' fighting spirit. They take to the field and begin winning events.
By the time the weightlifting competition begins, Klopstokia needs only three more points for victory. In the film's final scene, Tweeny excites The President's fierce temper in order to inspire him to a final superhuman effort. The President throws a 1000-lb weight at Tweeny, missing him but winning both the weightlifting competition and the shot put for Klopstokia.

Tags: romantic

Review:
Million Dollar Legs is one of a kind, a truly bizarre comedy with attitude to spare and an otherworldly quality all its own.
The closest cinematic parallel would be the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup, made at the same studio (Paramount) by the same producer (Herman J.
Both movies take place in mythical countries and include elements of political satire, with oblique references to the financial crisis then sweeping the globe.
Viewers with a taste for surreal silliness will be in seventh heaven.This film was made in anticipation of the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics.
Mankiewicz, an eccentric wit from New York who'd been a regular member of the Algonquin literary set, assigned the script to his 24 year-old brother Joe and a writer named Henry Myers.
Mankiewicz told interviewers that the studio brass responded favorably to his crazy ideas and didn't seem too concerned about what kind of movie it turned out to be, as long as it involved the Olympics.
One wonders how those Front Office executives -- not to mention Olympics Committee officials -- reacted when they saw the results.Our story is set in the republic of Klopstokia, a land that time forgot where, we're informed, the chief imports, exports, and inhabitants are nuts and goats.
In Klopstokia all the women are named Angela and all the men are named George -- except for our leading lady's little brother Willie, who shoots people in the butt with arrows.
The plot concerns a visiting American brush salesman (Jack Oakie) blessed with the name Migg Tweeny, who falls in love with a Klopstokian girl (Susan Fleming) who happens to be the daughter of the country's beleaguered President (W.C. Fields).
Tweeny's boss is eager to bestow money on deserving athletes, so Tweeny, who has been fired, contrives a plan to recruit a team of Klopstokian super-athletes for the Los Angeles Olympics.
Million Dollar Legs is generally remembered today as a W.C. Fields vehicle, but although he has a number a good moments he's really just a member of the larger comic ensemble.
Jack Oakie and Susan Fleming are the juvenile leads, and while normally I don't much care for Oakie I must admit he's quite appropriately cast as the feckless American brush salesman.
And special mention must go to the great Lyda Roberti in the role of the Mata Hari-like Mata Machree, the Woman No Man Can Resist.
Faced with formidable competition Roberti rises to the occasion and practically steals the picture with a show-stopping performance of her big number "When I Get Hot in Klopstokia," a tune that sadly doesn't get much airplay nowadays.There aren't many movies that even try to be as wacky as this one, but that doesn't mean Million Dollar Legs hasn't been influential.
Movie audiences of the day would have gotten it.Jack Oakie is perfect as the fast-talking brush salesman who saves Klopstockia.
My favorite line of hers, when she does her hootchie kootchie dance to try to inspire Hugh Herbert to greater feats of strength: "I been done all I can do - in public." There are so many other quotable lines in this movie - it's the kind of movie you watch and recite along with the actors.It helps to understand this movie to know a little something about what was 'in' in 1932, but it isn't absolutely necessary.
Million Dollar Legs is the second feature film with W.C. Fields in the sound era.
A year before Duck Soup was out, Million Dollar Legs took some real good political jabs using the American hosted Summer Olympics in Los Angeles as a background.
Certainly saved on location shooting.In fact one of the best things Million Dollar Legs has going for it is the good use of newsreel footage of the Olympics cut into the film.
In fact Paramount exploited the Olympics better in this film.W.C. Fields is the President of Klopstokia, a Ruritanian like country in Europe where all the people are trained from earliest times on earth to be athletes.
Fields in fact is the strongest man in his kingdom and that's how one becomes president.
When and if one beats him as Treasury Secretary Hugh Herbert keeps trying to do, you become president.But Herbert's lined up the rest of Fields's disloyal cabinet against him.
He's a fast talking salesman for Baldwin Brushes and he's got a great offer from company president George Barbier.
He recruits international femme fatale spy for hire Mata Machree played by Lyda Roberti.
Make sure they're heads are not in the game.Like Duck Soup to which this film bears a lot of resemblance Million Dollar Legs is good satire, a little gentler than Duck Soup, still it hits what it aims at.
220 years ago Million Dollar Legs could have come from the pen of Jonathan Swift.
This film went a long way to making W.C. Fields a star.
He was a star on Broadway in the Ziegfeld Follies and in George White's Scandals, but in silent films and in his sound work so far, he played mostly supporting roles in feature films.
In a battle of wits, nobody tops him and that includes the director and the writers.Fields and Oakie are supported by a real good cast of comic actors.
Besides who I've mentioned, special mention should go to Andy Clyde as Fields's major domo and Ben Turpin as the silent cross-eyed spy.For fans of W.C. Fields, a must.
Everything's perfect in this little, silly comedy about a small country trying to get out of their financial con-dish by getting a sponsor for their people in the Summer Olympics.The entire cast is just great from W.C. Fields down to Vernon Dent and Billy Gilbert.
One of the funniest lines: (To Mata Macree's butler:) "I want to see this woman no man can resist." (Butler:) "Madam is only resisted from 2-4 in the afternoon."This film, along with "International House" and "If I Had A Million" is the kind of silly, clever comedy that only Paramount could've released..
MILLION DOLLAR LEGS (Paramount, 1932), directed by Edward Cline, may have a a backstage musical sounding title to it revolving around sexy-legged chorus girls, but is actually a surreal comedy with all the elements of a slapstick silent Mack Sennett comedy, minus the Keystone Kops and bathing beauties.
Consisting of several silent screen comedians of the past, namely Andy Clyde and Ben Turpin (hilarious as crossed-eyed spy), the real stars are Jack Oakie and Susan Fleming, though the movie itself is remembered for the performances of second billed W.C. Fields as the President (not of the United States), and fourth billed Lyda Roberti, as the sexy spy known all over as "the woman no man can resist." MILLION DOLLAR LEGS, pertaining to Andy Clyde's character with the ability to run miles within a few minutes, is mostly an ingredient type of oddball comedy Paramount produced in the 1930s, a plot less story where nothing makes sense though laughs are plentiful right down to the silliest situations.
An easy blend of farce and satire predating "Monty Python's Flying Circus" of the 1970s, set in a fictional location, Klopstokia, a locale from the creative mind of Charlie Chaplin, though written by Joseph Mankiewicz, with plot and a "Migg Tweeny" sounding name more like something from of W.C. Fields himself.
Even if Fields didn't contribute in the screenplay as he did in his later works, he does retain his familiar character throughout, from some of his classic routines down to a "hearty handclasp." Forward: "Klopstokia - A Far Away Country; 'Chief Exports - goats and nuts; Chief Imports, goats and nuts; Chief inhabitants, goats and nuts." Klopstokia, population 81,006, a mythological country somewhere on this planet where all the girls are named "Angela" and the men called "George." Enter Mr. Baldwin (George Barbier), manufacturer of Baldwin Brushes, and Migg Tweeny (Jack Oakie), his top salesman whose specialty is selling brushes that brush.
On his way to the shipping dock, Migg meets and immediately falls in love with a girl named Angela (Susan Fleming), whose little brother, Willie (Dickie Moore) enjoys shooting arrows at his intended victims, believing all Americans are Indians, and father (W.C. Fields), the the president of Klopstokia.
Because every citizen is athletically superhuman, with the president weight lifting ton-heavy objects and using one of his staff members as a human weight lift, Tweeney saves the day by having Klopstokians participate in the Olympics in Los Angeles.
All 's well until Mata Machree (Lyda Roberti), a seductress spy, is hired by the president's trusted Secretary of State (Hugh Herbert) wanting to take control of Klopstokia, in order to keep the the Klopstokian team from winning.Often compared with the Marx Brothers 1933 comedy-satire, DUCK SOUP (Paramount), MILLION DOLLAR LEGS doesn't have any landmark songs as "Hail to Klopstokia" in place of "Hail to Freedonia," but it does consist of tunes as "When I Get Hot" (sung by Lyda Roberti); and "One Hour With You" lifted from a 1932 Maurice Chevalier musical retitled "Wolf-Boogle-Jig" subtitled a Klopstokian love song (sung by Jack Oakie); and "Good Night." Members of the President's cabinet include Billy Gilbert (the sneezing Secretary of the Interior); Teddy Hart (Secretary of War); Irving Bacon (Secretary of the Navy); and Vernon Dent (Secretary of Agriculture).
Susan Fleming, Oakie's love interest, who at times resembles Ruby Keeler, tap dancing performer of 1930s musicals for Warner Brothers, never achieved major stardom, yet is known basically as the wife of comedian Harpo Marx.In spite that MILLION DOLLAR LEGS is a very funny 62 minute movie, it's rarely revived these days.
A wild and crazy comedy, MILLION DOLLAR LEGS is something that needs to be seen to be believed.
Besides WC Fields there are a host of well-known comedians who contribute to the merriment found in this film.
Susan Fleming (the future Mrs Harpo Marx) plays WC Fields' daughter.
I love W.C. Fields, but even if you are relieved to know that he does not dominate this film you can be assured that Lyda Roberti, Jack Oakie and Ben Turpin are more than capable of carrying out what is a very funny farce on the Olympics..
W. C Fields is the hot tempered President of Klopstokia, an impoverished country where the Presidency is decided by arm wrestling matches.
(Sample Fields dialog; "The Constitution forbids me to hit a man under 200 pounds."  "I just had my lunch of roast goat stuffed with eel."  Lyda Roberti is hysterical as Mata Macree, a Brooklyn accented femme fetale "Not too clozz boyzz, youse catch on fi-yer." 62 minutes of genius comedy..
I found Million Dollar Legs to be one of the funniest films I've seen.
Besides THE PRISONER OF ZENDA the number of films dealing with fictitious foreign states include musicals, comedies, and even straight political dramas.
Look at THE LOVE PARADE, THE MERRY WIDOW, DUCK SOUP, and the present film, MILLION DOLLAR LEGS.
Basically these countries have very poor populations ("Klopstokia" in MILLION DOLLAR LEGS is said to be basically made of nuts and goats; "Marshovia" in THE MERRY WIDOW, and "Freedonia" in DUCK SOUP depend on the largess of one rich woman in each country).
Moreover W.C.Fields is as capricious in his way as Groucho Marx was in DUCK SOUP.
The Vice President (Hugh Herbert - not quite so silly in this film as in others) keeps looking for ways of turning out the President either legally or by underhanded ways.
When Klopstokia sends a large team of splendid athletes to the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, Herbert hires the world's greatest vamp/spy - Mata Machree (Lyda Roberti) to demoralize and split up the team (and so discredit the President).
Fields is forced to rely on Migg Sweeney, a brush salesman (Jack Oakie) who is romancing Fields' daughter Angela (Susan Fleming) by singing the national love song, "Woof Blugle Gif" which is based on the tune of "One Hour With Your" from the Paramount film of the same name.
Migg manages, despite his fear for his safety from his prospective father-in-law, does do the best he can to keep the team in tack, and to try to bring it to Olympic gold.The film is fast, as well as funny.
He made some marvelous movies and I was expecting it to be a treat because of the unusual cast which featured a couple silent comics (Andy Clyde and Ben Turpin) along with Jack Oakie and Fields.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be a pretty dopey film--with lots of crazy ideas but it never really was very funny.
In many ways, it reminds me of the Marx Brothers' "Duck Soup"...but not nearly as entertaining.The film is set in the fictional country of Klopstokia, population 81006.
Eventually, he and other Klopstokians go to the Los Angeles and that is when the film gets REALLY dumb.
The laughs all are the sorts that 6 and 7 year-olds would enjoy...but I just felt like again and again they went for cheap dumb jokes instead of stuff that would appeal to a wide audience.The problems with this film are very difficult to describe--most are sight gags that fall flat and describing funny scenes isn't particularly effective.
The bottom line is that Turpin had nothing to do in the film and Fields simply did many much better films...many..
The inimitable W.C. Fields, shackled to a script he (unfortunately) didn't write, plays the unflappable president of a mythical nation hoping to strike gold on the Olympic field of competition, but any other resemblance to a formal plot is strictly coincidental.
But why carp about a film this old with a running time of only 64 minutes?.
Jack Oakie stars as an American brush salesman working in the tiny country of Klopstokia.
He meets and fall in love with president W.C.Fields's daughter.
He is rejected as a potential suitor until he convinces Fields that the nearly bankrupt country can get the money they need by sending a team to the Olympic games in Los Angeles.
fun W.C. Fields film from 1932.
Fields is the president of Klopstokia, and the fuller brush salesman wants to marry the president's daughter.
The spy Mata Machree makes a date with everyone on the olympic team to distract them.
Co-stars Jack Oakie, Lyda Roberti, Susan Fleming.
C. Fields as its president).Second review - a "non-sequitur" doesn't mean "lines that don't make sense".
Fields 8, Oakie 0, in this Ruritanian contest, er, comedy.
Another Ruritanian comedy, set in Klopstokia where all the women are named Angela and all the Men are named George and W.C. Fields is the President who maintains power by beating everybody at arm-wrestling.
The romantic lead is played by that stuffed animal Jack Oakie and his romantic interest is Susan Fleming, who is pretty enough.
She tries to teach him, and he never manages to finish, a love song with nonsensical words to the tune of "One Hour With You," sung by Maurice Chevalier in the Lubitsch movie of that name that came out the same year Black-clad, wandering-eyed Ben Turpin keeps appearing as a spy in various ingenious and absurd moments.
The plot involves going to the Olympics in Los Angeles (pronounced with the hard G).
This 62-minute oddity is a poor man's DUCK SOUP.
Fields plays the president of a mythical country and is surrounded by bungling conspirators.
Most of the comedy consists of set pieces that probably were not fresh even in 1931 (Fields hooking his hat on his cane, Billy Gilbert sneezing comically, Ben Turpin crossing his eyes).
Fields fans will be especially disappointed--despite the billing, his is no more than a supporting role giving him little opportunity to display his genius..
I'd never heard of "Million Dollar Legs" until it was shown on cable a few days ago.
Some people said this was the funniest film they'd ever seen, and one person called it "the funniest movie ever made" -- evidently someone who has never seen any actual comedies.
A Lost W.C. Fields Film-Great fun and Satire!.
Directed by Edward Cline who directed some of W.C. Field's best movies.
A "Duck Soup" type of story that makes great fun of government bureaucracy and politics.
The obscure, poor country of "Klopstokia" where W.C. Fields is the President because he always wins at hand wrestling.
Jack Oakie plays Migg Tweeny, an American brush salesman and falls in love with "Angela" the President's only daughter.
(Susan Fleming) Several scenes will remind you of the palace in "Duck Soup".
Stars many old-time comedy actors: Ben Turpin (as "The Cross-eyed Spy").
Lyda Roberti plays the spellbinding blonde spy "Mata Macree".
Great fun, as any Field's film always is, but not as funny as some of his other films.
True Field's fans, however, will love it!
Her main brunette competitor in real life was Harpo Marx wife.This is the same studio and production team that was making the Marx Brothers great Duck Soup and even greater Horse Feathers, plus Monkey Business.
The plot involves the LA Olympics so the studio put togther an all comedy star olympics of their own.The pace is frantic, especially those million dollar legs.
While it is all in fun, when President Fields wins 2 Gold Medals, he deserves them and in the next few years would earn many more..
This film gets its high rating just because W.C. Fields is in it.The problem is that he isn't in much of it.He only had a couple of funny bits, and they weren't all that funny.Poor writing and direction is the problem.W.C. could be great, this film didn't give him a chance.Another problem is that the pace of the film is very slow and comic timing doesn't seem to have been invented yet.Ben Turpin never served a purpose except for the fact that he was cross eyed, Ha Ha Ha very funny, NOT.Jack Oakie and Hugh Herbert also turn in uncharacteristically dull performances.When all of these people are deadly dull the problem must be the writing and direction.