The Good Humor Man (1950)

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Good Humor man Biff Jones(Jack Carson) seems like a big kid himself, sometimes taking part in activities relating to the Captain Marvel club, in the ramshackle clubhouse, next to the school. This is truly a feast of comedy, mainly of the physical sort. It's also a murder and theft mystery. In fact, there are 2 murder mysteries, plus a twice disappearing body! Quite a lot happening in 80 min.! I was never bored, and I'm sure kids won't be. The first half features humor, without the complication of murder mysteries. Jack (or his dummy) almost floats down a storm drain after he was stuffed in his truck freezer, by some bad guys, then rescued by police, who had a hankering for a Good Humor. His stiff ice-encased body falls over into the water from a nearby gushing decapitated hydrant, hit by a car. Then, his body is swept toward a storm drain, being pulled out at the last second. He creates havoc in the police station when he is recovering, letting loose mega- sneezes that shatter windows, blow the petals off a bouquet, or scatter the desk papers all over. .....In another incident, a furnace stoker wants a good humor. But every time, it melts before Jack can deliver it. Finally, he puts a bit of dry ice in his hat, along with the good humor. It almost works, but we see the melted ice cream and chocolate running down his face. ........Jack is sometimes accompanied by his secretary girlfriend Margie(Lola Albright), or briefly, by another blond: Bonnie(Jean Wallace), who pulls him into her life, then is apparently strangled, perhaps by Jack, in his sleep(But, see later). I wish they had used 2 actresses who didn't look so much alike, as I was confused for a while.......The last 20 min. is a non-stop barrage of hilarious slapstick events, as the bad guys chase Jack and Margie around in the playground, then inside the school, having misadventures with the musical instruments. Eventually, the Captain Marvel gang are alerted and come on bicycles, in soap box cars, and even in a bathtub on wheels, pulled by a mule! It's like The Little Rascals returned! The kids use a variety of physical aids to subdue the villains, ending in pandemonium. .......Unless you are averse to slapstick, and murder mysteries, or B&W films, be sure to check this out at YouTube

Straight out of the style that made the "Fuller Brush" movies, this Columbia farce is top dog in what makes old fashioned comedy so much fun. It's all in a day's work for ice cream salesman Jack Carson who gets involved in more than just selling his products than he bargained for. Ringing bells make human voices impossible to understand, a kid with a speech impediment confuses him with an order, and melting ice cream bars in a furnace room create all sorts of havoc. But it's his coming to the aide of a young woman who claims that men are trying to kill her that guides the plot, literally putting him into a feel freeze, and leading to more mayhem when he does come upon a corpse and finds himself in a lot more trouble.Carson, coming off a long spell at Warner Brothers, gets his best part, and really shows off a great bag of comic tricks. Lola Albright supports Carson as his long suffering girlfriend who keeps showing up at the wring time. Carson, wearing a women's slip and covered in soot, ends up "caged" with a bunch of tough dames, and must try to square things with Albright. Frank Ferguson is very funny as a police lieutenant, while Peter Miles is lovable as Albright's younger brother. Look for a young Richard Egan as a police officer. It's a shame that Carson never got the chance to star in a sitcom; he would have been a nice contrast to the women dominated field of TV sitcoms in the 1950's, equally as funny as Gleason, Skelton, Backus and Arnaz. The ending with the villains dealing with Carson, Albright and an army of kids is absurd in its overuse of comedy but somehow works anyway.

I wholeheartedly endorse the previous reviewer's comments (q.v.), having seen "The Good Humor Man" at about the same time and at the same age. One interesting aspect has to do with the Captain Marvel "product placement." (The kids, customers of Carson's character who help him in the denouement, are members of the CM fan club). Shortly after the film was released, the Captain Marvel comics and other products disappeared when the copyright holders finally succumbed to a suit brought by DC Comics alleging too many resemblances between Captain M and that sissy Superman! That may be the reason that no video of this movie seems to be available through normal commercial sources.

If you don't love Captain Marvel and Good Humor bars, you won't understand this film. It's that simple. Carson with his ex, Albright, is a lovable ice cream salesman who belongs to a local Captain Marvel club. Carson excelled in these lunk-head roles as the good guy with a heart of gold who might not be a Nobel Laurate in Nuclear Physics but is basically a kid at heart. But, even though I was in the transition from kid to teenager when I saw this film the year it came out, I knew then, as I know now, I'd always be a kid at heart. We can't make movies like this anymore. Simple people like ice cream salesman are hardly attractive role models for our present-day youngsters. We have to have martial arts superheroes, slick Wall Street Masters of the Universe, dopers or people on the edge thrust up as those worthy of interest. Catching a bunch of crooks with a Captain Marvel fan club as back-up with no sex and little violence would never make it to the screen these days. But, sports fans, it did back then and I'm very glad it did. I LOVE THIS FILM! UP WITH CARSON! UP WITH CAPTAIN MARVEL! AND, UP WITH ICE CREAM BARS!!