HOW DOOOO YOU DO!!! (1945)
(a.k.a. HOW DO YOU DOOOO?)
Article #739 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-24-2003
Posting Date: 8-21-2003
Directed by Ralph Murphy
Featuring Bert Gordon, Harry von Zell, Ella Mae Morse

Various performers on a radio show take a vacation at a resort where a murder is committed.

All right, this has been driving me crazy for some time, so let me get it out of my system. The title of the movie comes from a catchphrase of Bert Gordon’s character known as the Mad Russian. The reason for the several ‘o’s in the title is that when he said the phrase, he would stretch out the word “do”. Unfortunately, neither of the two titles gets it right; HOW DOOOO YOU DO!! puts the extra ‘o’s on the wrong “do”, but gets the punctuation right; HOW DO YOU DOOOOO? puts the ‘o’s in the right place, but he never said it as a question, so the punctuation is wrong. It should be HOW DO YOU DOOOO!!!

Oh, I suppose I should say something about the movie as well, shouldn’t I? From what I gather, Bert Gordon could be quite amusing, so I suspect that this PRC cheapie didn’t really do him justice; in fact, it would be the last movie he would make. Everyone is largely playing himself, and there are some nice musical numbers, and I do find the concept that Gordon invites several actors who play detectives to appear at the hotel in the belief that they will solve the mystery to be somewhat amusing. Nonetheless, the comedy is tepid indeed, and the movie never really gets off the ground. There are slight horror and science fiction aspects that don’t pop up until late in the story, and the ending is quite bizarre. I think this one might be mostly interesting to anyone interested in catching a bit of Bert Gordon’s schtick.