The Inspector General is a 1949 musical comedy film. Loosely based on Nikolai Gogol's play The Inspector General, it stars Danny Kaye and was directed by Henry Koster. The film also stars Walter Slezak, Gene Lockhart, Barbara Bates, Elsa Lanchester, and Rhys Williams. Original music by Sylvia Fine and Johnny Green. 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1949 calendar). ... Musical theater (or theatre) is a form of theater combining music, songs, dance, and spoken dialogue. ... Film is a term that encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as the field in general. ... Nikolai Gogol Gogol redirects here. ... The Inspector General or The Government Inspector (in Russian, Ревизор) is a satirical play by 19th century Russian playwright and novelist Nikolai Gogol, published and produced in 1836. ... Kaye entertaining U.S. troops at Sasebo, Japan, 25 Oct 1945 David Daniel Kaminsky, known as Danny Kaye (January 18, 1913 – March 3, 1987) was an American actor, singer and comedian. ... Henry Koster (May 1, 1905-September 21, 1988) was born Herman Kosterlitz in Berlin, Germany. ... Actor Walter Slezak in Born to Kill (1947) Walter Slezak (May 3, 1902 - April 21, 1983) was an Austrian actor and son of famed opera star (Leo Slezak). ... Gene Lockhart (1891 - 1957) was a Canadian character actor, singer and popular composer. ... Actress Barbara Bates Film actress Barbara Bates (August 6, 1925-March 18, 1969) was a film actress of the 1940s and 1950s. ... Lanchester in Naughty Marietta Elsa Lanchester (October 28, 1902 - December 26, 1986 in Woodland Hills, California) was an Oscar-nominated English/American character actress. ... Rhys Williams (December 31, 1897-May 28, 1969) was a Welsh-born character actor in movies and television, whose career spanned several decades. ... Sylvia Fine (1913-1991) was a American lyricist and widow of the comedian Danny Kaye. ... Category: ...

In this movie, Kaye sang such famous lines as "What does an Inspector General do? Inspect generals?" and "And so we drink! But first. . ." This film is probably the version of Gogol's story best known to Western audiences, in no small part because it changed Gogol's pessimistic ending into a more upbeat, Americanized one in which the Inspector General is a heroic figure.

The film lays the action in an unspecified country - possibly Hungary or Poland, just after occupation by Napoleon. For other uses, see Napoleon (disambiguation). ...

Georgi (Kaye), an illiterate member of a wandering band of gypsies led by Yakov (Slezak) escapes from a travelling medicine show after he innocently lets 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 feed bag, he's arrested as a vagrant and sentenced to hang the next day by a corrupt police chief, desperate to prove his efficiency. The Rroma people (pronounced rahma, singular Rrom) along with the closely related Sinti people are commonly known as Gypsies. ... Look up elixir in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

The town is run by a corrupt Mayor, 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 neighbourhood, and probably in disguise. They mistake Georgi for the Inspector and ply him with food and drink whilst plotting to have him killed.

Naturally, their plans go awry and Georgi, despite his innocence, discovers how corrupt they really are. And when the real Inspector arrives suddenly, he also realises that Georgi is the most honest fellow he's met since leaving Vienna. He names him as the new Mayor of Brodny and arrests the others. Yakov, who's also wandered into the town, becomes Georgi's personal servant. Inhabitants according to official census figures: 1800 to 2005 Vienna in 1858 Vienna (German: Wien ) is the capital of Austria, and also one of the nine States of Austria. ...

External links

• IMDB listing
• Clips from the film in Windows and Real Media formats (Public Domain)