The sign over the gate announces a "milk farm": "Reduce by exercise. Milk diet." Betty Hutton is a trainer at the farm, where we first see her encouraging, cajoling and leading her guests through a rigorous set of "reducing" exercises and then sending them out for their big snack—a glass of milk. Even just marching in place, Betty is bursting with energy.
Bob Hope, meanwhile, is a soldier driving a jeep full of supplies across bumpy fields to be delivered to
.the back entrance of the milk farm? Yes, he's bootlegging in pies and éclairs and chocolates to the hungry residents. It quickly turns out that Bob and Betty are engaged; their continuing efforts to make it to a wedding day are a main subject of the picture.
The other plot involves three middle-aged husbands taking off for a weekend of "fishing," and their three wives making up their minds to pursue some sports of their own—namely, rounding up three boisterous soldiers to join them on a Sunday outing at the cabin where they suspect their husbands will be. Sure enough, it turns out to be a full house.
Musical numbers include a neat dance by Hope and his two buddies, and also an acrobatic and humorous specialty dance from a night club duo (Nicco and Tanya?). Hutton delivers a bouncy tune complete with fast-talking (!) bursts that make one scramble to keep up.
Hope is good and has the wildest role, including a passage where he feigns injury and insanity with a ketchup-soaked cloth on his head. Hutton is always fun to watch; she and Hope make a cute and wacky couple. Zasu Pitts has a couple of hilarious lines but it's the way she says them that's funny—her chiding a soldier by calling him a "nasty little boy" is only funny the way Zasu says it.
Joe Sawyer is a natural as the often clueless sergeant. The look on his face is priceless when Hutton attacks him with the mystifying charge, "You big brute! You didn't have to murder him just because he hit you with a piece of pie!"
It all gets pretty wild toward the end—the madcap last half hour certainly picks up steam from the early going. The script is not exactly highbrow, but the cast carry it off with enthusiasm and high spirits.
Scene that must be seen to be believed: The film's opening shot shows a row of cows eating out of a trough, then pans to a rear view of the row of cows
then fades into the rear view of a row of fat ladies bending over in the exercise room.
