Diplomaniacs 1933 Story by Joseph L Mankiewicz, screenplay by Joseph L Mankiewicz and Henry Meyers, directed by William A Seiter. It's executive producer was Merian C Cooper and the associate producer was Sam Jaffe.
Like most of the Wheeler and Woolsey films it's available on DVD from the Warner Brothers Archives. There's a 4 disc set with 9 films, a 3 disc set with 6 films, and 8 single discs with a film on each. This is the 12th of the 22 feature pictures that W&W made together. They made a few shorts together and each made a few solo films.
Robert Wheeler and Bert Woolsey are barbers on a Native American reservation where there's little business. The oil rich tribe gives the guys a million dollars each and sends them to a peace conference in Europe. It makes little sense but there you go. It's about as absurd as their last picture So This Is Africa.
They sail to Europe and cause chaos aboard ship and later at the conference. Some rival governments and a dirty arms dealer want to see the peace conference fail so they try gumming up the works. Thankfully typical dirty tricks don't work so well on our boys. Marjorie White and Phyllis Barry are the romantic interests, they fall hard for the boys. I know, absurd. Edgar Kennedy is the chairman of the conference. Hugh Herbert is Chow-Chow, he's credited as Chinaman in the films credits.
The movie is of the times and filled with stereotypes of all sorts. While I'm not happy to see the stereotypes, I can put them in the context of their time. It's politically incorrect for the modern day but not so much in 1933. Near the end of the film a bomb is tossed into the conference and the explosion gives everyone in the room blackface, then there's a minstrel show style song and dance number called No More War. You may say "Wow" but it turns out to be a good song with the right message. I'm not always a big fan of the musical numbers but this film has some of their best work.
I read on the IMDb that the film's been preserved by the Library of Congress. That's a good thing, we need these sorts of films to remind ourselves of what we were like in the past. I'm also glad they put it on disc so we can still enjoy one of Wheeler and Woolsey's better films.
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