When macho Fred MacMurray learns he's been declared "4-F" for military service (reduced to working in a metal recycling plant), his ego is greatly damaged, especially when the girl he loves (Joan Leslie) keeps turning him down for dates with men on active duty. With the help of a mischievous genie (Gene Sheldon) he locates in an antique bottle, he gets into the line of active duty: As a crew member on one of Christopher Columbus's ships, as a soldier at Valley Forge, and as a spy trying to get information from the German army for none other than George Washington himself. Sheldon's time travel device keeps him going further back in time from the Revolutionary War times to Manhattan Island when it was New Amsterdam. Scenes of the Native American dominated New York City are filled with "Airplane!" style humor, previously popularized in "Hellzapoppin'!" which includes deer stopping for traffic lights, a forest which has cross-streets posted for 42nd and Broadway, and natives who sell him Manhattan then set off in search of a fool dumb enough to buy Brooklyn.
It is this fluffy, fun attitude which makes this an absolute crowd-pleaser, and while you won't go home singing songs about Columbus's crew insisting that the world is flat, you won't hold your nose at them either. That production number is done in almost opera style with music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Ira Gershwin who contribute different styles of music for each era that the film explores. Alan Mowbray is imperiously funny as George Washington (being warned by MacMurray about his companion, Benedict Arnold), and Anthony Quinn makes a cameo as a Native American who bamboozles MacMurray into buying property which he will utilize centuries later in order to keep girlfriend Leslie's look-alike from marrying someone she doesn't love. Leslie and June Haver (MacMurray's real-life wife) show up as several different characters, throwing confusion into MacMurray's way, but delight for the audience.
It is this fluffy, fun attitude which makes this an absolute crowd-pleaser, and while you won't go home singing songs about Columbus's crew insisting that the world is flat, you won't hold your nose at them either. That production number is done in almost opera style with music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Ira Gershwin who contribute different styles of music for each era that the film explores. Alan Mowbray is imperiously funny as George Washington (being warned by MacMurray about his companion, Benedict Arnold), and Anthony Quinn makes a cameo as a Native American who bamboozles MacMurray into buying property which he will utilize centuries later in order to keep girlfriend Leslie's look-alike from marrying someone she doesn't love. Leslie and June Haver (MacMurray's real-life wife) show up as several different characters, throwing confusion into MacMurray's way, but delight for the audience.