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The Inspector General

The Inspector General

Comedy · Romance · 1949

An illiterate stooge in a traveling medicine show wanders into a strange town and is picked up on a vagrancy charge. The town's corrupt officials mistake him for the inspector general whom they think is traveling in disguise. Fearing he will discover they've been pocketing tax money, they make several bungled attempts to kill him.

Movie details

The Inspector General

“The Kaye way to chaos and corruption.”

1949 Comedy · Romance 1h 41m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

6.7 / 10

3.7K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

91 %

Tomatometer

TMDB

6.6 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

An illiterate stooge in a traveling medicine show wanders into a strange town and is picked up on a vagrancy charge. The town's corrupt officials mistake him for the inspector general whom they think is traveling in disguise. Fearing he will discover they've been pocketing tax money, they make several bungled attempts to kill him.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over The Inspector General?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Henry Koster

Written by

Harry Kurnitz · Philip Rapp

Danny Kaye

Danny Kaye

Georgi

Walter Slezak

Walter Slezak

Yakov

Barbara Bates

Barbara Bates

Leza

Elsa Lanchester

Elsa Lanchester

Maria

Gene Lockhart

Gene Lockhart

The Mayor

Alan Hale

Alan Hale

Kovatch

Walter Catlett

Walter Catlett

Colonel Castine

Court is in session

Put The Inspector General on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Sentimental Softie

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Cool Ironist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.