The Inspector General (film)

The Inspector General is a 1949 Technicolor musical comedy film. It stars Danny Kaye and was directed by Henry Koster. The film also stars Walter Slezak, Gene Lockhart, Barbara Bates, Elsa Lanchester, Alan Hale Sr. and Rhys Williams. Original music by Sylvia Fine and Johnny Green.

Georgi Danny Kaye, an illiterate member of a wandering band of Gypsies led by Yakov Walter Slezak escapes from a travelling medicine show after he innocently lets slip that the elixir theyre selling is a fraud. Tired and hungry, he wanders into the small town of Brodny and whilst trying to sample the contents of a horses feedbag, hes arrested as a vagrant and sentenced to hang the next day by a corrupt police chief Alan Hale Sr., desperate to prove his efficiency.The town is run by a corrupt Mayor Gene Lockhart, whose employees and councillors are all his cousins and equally corrupt and incompetent, but they are frightened when they learn that the Inspector General is in their neighborhood, and probably in disguise. The band of officials and the mayor want to protect their town and their lives, so, acting foolishly they seal off every road to keep the inspector from entering their town. They mistake Georgi for the Inspector and ply him with food and drink whilst plotting to have him killed. Yakov wanders into the small town and convinces Georgi to stay on as an inspector general and accept the bribes the officials so willingly throw at him. Of course, Yakov wants to seize Georgis misfortune and turn it into a new start for his own life. ........

Source: Wikipedia