A Miss in a Mess (1949) User Reviews

He'll Do It With His Little Hatchet

[boblipton · 5/10 · 5 July 2019]

Barbara Jo Allen -- renamed 'Vera Vague' by the mighty minds of the movie industry -- is to be married to Stephen Roberts, but her aunt, Lois Austin, shows her a newspaper showing that a serial axe murderer -- also played by Mr. Roberts. After some mild shenanigans, the axe murderer shows up and Miss Allen goes with him, thinking him her bridegroom.

It's a Jules White comedy short, which means the gags are big, loud, and faked, and the reactions are likewise. Miss Allen had been playing the Vera Vague character, which she had invented, since 1940 in the movies. Earlier she had been a radio actor, and before that a Sorbonne student born on 5th Avenue in New York.

I guess Vera doesn't read the newspapers.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 3 September 2018]

An amusing set-up leads to some very funny visual gags that ends this two reeler short abruptly and without a concrete conclusion. Newly engaged Vera Vague is badgered by a seemingly meddlesome aunt (Lois Austin) over a newspaper headline that shows the picture of a hatchet killer who looks exactly like her fiance (Stephen Robert's), and the killer always strikes on his honeymoon! Of course, Roberts shows up in the area as the killer, creating all sorts of comical mayhem. A misunderstanding of Vague finding Roberts in her aunt's arms leads her into a locked room with the killer, and a chase sequence later ensues with killer Roberts trying to flee while having a rope tied around Vague and later around Austin in a completely different car. It all moves very fast and has a lot of funny moments but never really lets the viewer know what happens with killer Roberts at the end.