Sleevenotes:

Take a Hollywood hotel in 1938 and fill it with 150 destructive and randy midgets involved in making the classic MGM musical fantasy The Wizard of Oz. Add a secret agent trying to protect a visiting Duke and Duchess from an assassin and a lovely young woman facing the impossible task of controlling the midgets. Stir in more zany fun with the arrival of of two Axis agents who come to the hotel to plan the World War Two invasion of America and mix well with a group of Japanese photographers unable to speak any English. And there you have just some of the ingredients of the happiest, most hilarious and entertaining screwball comedy in years! The casting is spot on, headed by comedy expert Chevy Chase (Foul Play, Caddyshack, National Lampoon's Vacation) as the secret agent up to his eyes in escalating trouble. Romance comes from the delightful Carrie Fisher of Star Wars fame as a talent scout with 150 little problems on her hands and more comedy is in the capable hands of veteran comedienne Eve Arden and Billy Barty and Mako as enemy agents who don't even know what each other looks like! If you loved the Wizard of Oz, you'll be helpless with laughter when you find out what really went on behind the scenes of its filming.

Review:
Chevy Chase finds himself slap bang in the middle of an over-the-top spoof movie where he's the only guy playing it straight. Seriously. There are a billion odd things going on at once on the screen with several (lame) sight gags and yet the scriptwriters decided not to let Chevy in on the laughs. Forgetting Chevy's role, this movie is one of the poorest examples of a spoof ever committed to celluloid and manages to break every rule of political correctness with it's (admittedly affectionate and inoffensive) stereotyping of everything including the Nazi's, Japanese tourists and most obviously 'little' people. This really is hard work to watch, let alone enjoy, with Chevy Chase and Carrie Fisher both looking very uneasy in this movie although both can fortunately claim much higher points in their careers.

Funniest scenes:
Chevy trying to eat while Strudel eyes his meat - "Look Strudel - The Hindenburg!"

Japanese guy copping it in the restaurant - "The pearl is in the river", and Chevy carefully patting his back and leaving him face down in his dinner before dragging out another dead Strudel.

Billy Barty disrobing Carrie Fisher leaving her to roam in her underwear. For anyone who first experienced Star Wars during puberty this is easily the best scene in the movie.

The assassin takes out a lift full of Japanese tourists - "I could have held the elevator Sir."

Chevy making literally no effort to avert his eyes while Carrie Fisher dresses herself.

Top lines:
Bruce: "Hey wait, you dropped your, er, diaphragm."

Annie (with Bruce lying on top of her): "I suppose that's your gun huh?"
Bruce: "Oh no, I wear a shoulder holster."

Lift attendant (to Bruce): "Thank God you're tall."

Henry: "You are bad little people. You deserve to be short."

Nakamuri: "No time for pygmy perversions!"
Otto: "There was nothing in there anyway!"

Fletch UK Rating: 3 out of 10

Links:
imdb.com
yahoo movies