Hellzapoppin'

Hellzapoppin' (1941) is an anarchic musical comedy you can watch online on iFILM, directed by H. C. Potter. Vaudeville madmen Olsen and Johnson set out to turn their runaway Broadway revue into a movie and start shredding the rulebook from the first reel.

There's barely a plot, and that's the gag. The pair bicker with the projectionist, the film strip jams and catches fire, intertitles talk back, props drop in from nowhere, and a shy romance between two young lovers keeps getting buried under the chaos the comics are supposedly there to fix. Martha Raye, Mischa Auer and Shemp Howard pile on more mayhem.

Born from a legendary stage hit, it ranks among the most chaotic comedies of the old studio era, and its explosive Lindy Hop number by the Harlem Congeroos still drops jaws today. Fast, strange and weirdly ahead of its time — catnip for anyone who loves absurdist humor. Stream Hellzapoppin' (1941) online on iFILM.