The Inspector General (1949 Color Musical Comedy film)

The Inspector General is a 1949 American Technicolor musical comedy film, suggested by the play by Nikolai Gogol. It stars Danny Kaye and was directed by Henry Koster. The film also stars Walter Slezak, Barbara Bates, and Elsa Lanchester. Original music and lyrics are by the associate producer Sylvia Fine, who was married to Danny Kaye, with Johnny Green credited for musical direction and incidental score.

Premise
The film is loosely based on Nikolai Gogol's play The Inspector General. The plot is re-located from the Russian Empire into an unspecified corrupted region of a country that suddenly finds itself under the supervision of the First French Empire.

Plot
Georgi (Danny Kaye), an illiterate member of a wandering band of Gypsies led by Yakov (Walter Slezak) escapes from a travelling medicine show after he innocently let's slip that the elixir they're selling is a fraud. Tired and hungry, he wanders into the small town of Brodny and whilst trying to sample the contents of a horse's feedbag, he's arrested as a vagrant and sentenced to hang the next day by a corrupt police chief (Alan Hale), desperate to prove his efficiency.

The town is run by a corrupt Mayor (Gene Lockhart), whose employees and councillors are all his cousins and equally corrupt and incompetent, but they are frightened when they learn that the Inspector General is in their neighborhood, and probably in disguise. The band of officials and the mayor want to protect their town and their lives, so, acting foolishly they seal off every road to keep the inspector from entering their town. They mistake Georgi for the Inspector and ply him with food and drink whilst plotting to have him killed. Yakov wanders into the small town and convinces Georgi to stay on as an inspector general and accept the bribes the officials so willingly throw at him. Of course, Yakov wants to seize Georgi's misfortune and turn it into a new start for his own life.

Cast
Danny Kaye as Georgi
Walter Slezak as Yakov
Barbara Bates as Leza
Elsa Lanchester as Maria
Gene Lockhart as The Mayor
Alan Hale as Kovatch
Walter Catlett as Colonel Castine
Rhys Williams as Inspector General