| Shoot the Works | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Wesley Ruggles |
| Screenplay by | Claude Binyon Gene Fowler Howard J. Green Ben Hecht |
| Produced by | Albert Lewis Adolph Zukor |
| Starring | Jack Oakie Ben Bernie Dorothy Dell Alison Skipworth Roscoe Karns Arline Judge William Frawley |
| Cinematography | Leo Tover |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 80 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Shoot the Works is a 1934 Americanpre-Codecomedy film directed byWesley Ruggles and written byClaude Binyon,Gene Fowler, Howard J. Green andBen Hecht. It is based on theGene Fowler andHarold Hecht 1932 playThe Great Magoo (and not, despite the title, the 1931 musical revueShoot the Works). The film starsJack Oakie,Ben Bernie,Dorothy Dell,Alison Skipworth,Roscoe Karns,Arline Judge andWilliam Frawley. It was released on June 29, 1934, byParamount Pictures, just before rigorous enforcement of theHollywood Production Code that began on July 1, 1934.[1][2]
The final film for Dorothy Dell and Lew Cody, both of whom were deceased by the time of the film's release.
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In a contemporary review forThe New York Times, criticAndre Sennwald calledShoot the Works "a remarkably dull show" and wrote a scathing review:
"The Great Magoo" has now been scrubbed, rinsed and dried in the California sunshine with such heartiness that not only its stench but also its humor has been washed out. Flaying the production for its attention to dramatic hygiene is obviously not the most effective method of prodding the producers into the pastures now being staked out for them by the current film crusade. Their error resided, not in their well-intentioned efforts to perform a major operation upon a bawdy play, but their attempt to transfer the guttersnipe population of "The Great Magoo" to the screen in the first place. Lacking anything in its structure that might be mistaken for a thesis, the story depends for its lure upon a cynical contemplation of a gaudy and fly-blown crew of small-time show people. Staking its claims to recognition upon its success in escaping the usual beery sentimentalisms with which the drama regards her children, the work, in its film version, turns a back somersault into the emotional commonplaces which it originally sought to avoid.[3]
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