So You Want to Go to a Convention (1952)
*** (out of 4)
Joe McDoakes tells wife Alice that he's going to Omaha for a convention but he's actually talked into a trip to Palm Springs by "Good Times" Charlie Jones. Once down there Joe calls home to have Alice say she's just happening to take a trip there so he must try and get home without her finding out the truth. Fans of the series are going to eat this one up as O'Hanlon and Coates are both in top-form and they really milk every laugh that they can get. The highlight of the film is without question when Joe and Charlie arrive back to their bedroom and they're so drunk that they think they have double beds when in fact it's just one. The pay-off to this sequence is very funny but so are various other gags including a rather hilarious "owl dance" that the boys must give. I was surprised to see how well Jackson Wheeler was as Charlie. He is constantly singing bad songs but doing them with such nice comic timing that you can't help but laugh. As usual the film ends with a punchline with the gag here working very well.
