Plot Summary - POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD - - Henry Smith (Jack Haley) of Plainville, Missouri is declared the "Most Average Man in America" after winning a radio contest (sponsored by Puff Cigarettes) asking 100 poll questions. He becomes a hometown hero and starts to spend his $25,000 cash prize even before he's gone to NYC to be awarded it on the air. The powers-that-be behind the contest have decided our man would better serve their purposes if they could secretly follow his every move to get the dope on what the Average Man likes. So - they trick him into believing he has been disqualified, then hire him at the station so he can earn money to pay back what he owes back home. Jack Oakie is picked to room with him and take notes for use by research company Guidance, Inc. to make decisions toward what products to market. But Henry is distracted by girl troubles relating to his fiancee back home, and starts doing weird stuff that no average man would actually do (ketchup in his coffee, for one). When an ambassador wants to find out the statistics on whether the average man wants to go to war or not - Guidance, Inc. is on the job, and use poor Henry as the guinea pig. They get him sick via a poison ivy branch massage, then while he's bedridden and recovering they trick him with fake radio broadcasts and trick bombs outside the window to make him believe that War has started! When he finally races off to enlist, he's rounded up into the nut house where straitjackets are the norm.
Review - Okay, this felt like a B-comedy with a few songs - silly fun, nothing great, but mildly pleasant enough. However, the gist of the story revolves around men treating another man (our main character) badly, which just doesn't really make the film that endearing even if things do work out for him in the end - making him think he's lost his prize, infecting him with poison ivy, tricking him to think there's a War, all for the sake of their own profits - um, not so nice. Tony Martin appears singing the title song in this. I'm not sure how I really feel about Jack Haley carrying a whole movie - the actress who plays his girlfriend is out there forgettable. There are lots of thirties character actors to see in this, Charles Lane for one. A nice looking print, screened at Cinecon 45. Rating - 6.5 to 7/10 stars
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