If you are a fan of the Maisie films you may be surprised (as I was) that this is only the second in the series (out of ten). It's so over the top it feels like the series has "jumped the shark" and the brassy showgirl from Brooklyn finds herself in Africa in an isolated medical camp surrounded by restless natives.
In all her films Maisie gets into hilarious situations, but the best scenes are when her suffering stage acts go horribly wrong just before she gets fired.... In Congo Maisie however the "disaster" stage act comes at the climax when she must out voodoo a native witch doctor with hokey illusions from her nightclub act - and of course this means she has to present her entire show including singing St Louis Woman to the accompaniment of native drums while wearing a showgirl costume. This is mere minutes after assisting in emergency surgery, meanwhile clearing up the relationships of everyone around her.... It's all for laughs at a manic screwball pace. Southern moves briskly from scene to scene holding the energy. By the time she starts doing her nightclub act in the jungle I was in love.
All the Maisie movies are charmers, and as the series progressed Maisie joins the war, works in an airplane factory, goes out west and discovers a hidden goldmine.... Maisie is practically a prototype of Scooby-Doo-esque iconic American adventures, borrowing liberally from trendy plot lines appropriate for a B comedy. They are all feather light and Ann Southern puts so much heart and sweetness into her character, It's wonderful to see same Maisie story progression, her fighting and falling in love with her leading man again and again - even though we know it won't be the same guy next time, poor Maisie!
But Congo Maisie is the one that really stands out as the most outrageous and off the hook. It breaks from the apple pie formula into stylized farce, and pokes fun at so many movie tropes of the day that it stands out from the rest of the series as a funny parody of many films, from Harlow's Red Dust to Ann Harding's Prestige, all painted with broad strokes and with snappy dialog.
