MartinHafer I like Red Skelton films. However, they're certainly not all alike. His best are films where he's the star and nothing else. But since MGM was the studio of the big musicals as well, often he was placed in musicals...with mostly second-rate results. I have nothing against musicals....but when you are making a comedy, let the comedian do his schtick and don't distract the audience with songs. And, unfortunately, this one also has a bit of Esther Williams' swimming...and so Skelton isn't exactly the sole focus of the movie.Cornie (Skelton) and Debbie (Esther Williams) work at a carnival. One day, a super-rich Texan, Dan Sabinas (Keenan Wynn) arrives and takes an instant liking to Cornie and invites him to a big party he's throwing. Unfortunately, Dan is dead drunk and has no recollection of doing this...but Cornie takes him at his word and brings Debbie with him to Texas for the party. Through a case of mistaken identity, the pair are mistaken for Dan and his sister--and soon everyone is making over them like they are rich millionaires. Insanely, the pair decide to play along...and ultimately get into all sorts of trouble. The worst part is that Red accidentally loses $17,000 in a poker game that lasts about 30 seconds...and he cannot possibly pay. How can he extricate himself from this huge mess? And, what will Debbie do when a man (Howard Keel) has fallen from her and it appears that he thinks she is Dan's sister!While the plot sounds pretty funny it suffers from three problems. The first I mentioned above--singing and swimming that get in the way of the comedy. The second is that the ending is incredibly ludicrous with everything working out just fine...almost as if an intertitle card popped up and said "Ignore the mess they've gotten into....PRESTO...it's gone". Third, and the previous two problems contribute to this, is that it just isn't a particularly funny film. Agreeable but nothing more.

Michael O'Keefe This musical comedy stars Red Skelton as Cornie, who teams with the ever attractive Esther Williams as his partner Debbie, who work a dunk tank at a carnival...not successfully. Cornie comes to the aid of an oil baron Dan Sabinas(Keenan Wynn), who has had too much to drink and takes a cab to Mexico before giving his car keys to the carnival worker. When Cornie tries to return the car to Dan's hotel, he is mistaken for the tycoon. This is when the fun really begins. Howard Keel plays Dan's ranch foreman; Texas CARNIVAL now becomes a legitimate musical. (At some point you will think this could have been just as good as a straight comedy). Others in the cast: Ann Miller, Tom Tully, Hans Conried, Thurston Hall and Glenn Strange. One of the highlights is a water ballet sequence. Ms. Williams couldn't look any finer.

moonspinner55 Penniless carnival barker Red Skelton and chorine-turned-dunking girl Esther Williams are mistaken for millionaires and are forced to enter a Chuck Wagon race to eradicate a gambling debt. Modest M-G-M comedy-musical filmed in Technicolor looks just as good as the studio's more-popular output--what was needed, however, was a screenplay with bigger laughs and stronger characterizations. Skelton juggles, sings, and performs some pleasing comedy shtick, but he's too polite here; director Charles Walters keeps Red reigned-in so much that a nutty drunk routine late in the movie seems out of place. Williams has a nifty fantasy number where she appears to pole-dance underwater (!), while Ann Miller has one great tap-dance sequence accompanied by a mad xylophone. Isolated moments of fun linked by the barest minimum of plot, though the wild slapstick finale nearly makes up for the picture's deficiencies. **1/2 from ****

bkoganbing Esther Williams set on the MGM lot must have been in repair, maybe the pool needed a chlorine refill because none of the spectacular aquatic scenes associated with her films will be found in Texas Carnival. In fact this is really a Red Skelton film and the powers that be at MGM who always liked to keep their contract players working said do this film while we clean the pool.It's not the greatest Esther Williams or even Red Skelton film, but it does have an amusing moment or two. Red and Esther are working at a dunk tank in a cheap carnival when an inebriated Keenan Wynn shows up and through a combination of circumstances Williams and Skelton wind up going to a Texas resort being mistaken for Wynn and his sister Paula Raymond.They both find love and trouble at the resort with Williams taking a real liking to Howard Keel who is the foreman of Wynn's ranch and Red falling for the tap dancing sheriff's daughter in the person of Ann Miller. Red also by playing up to the big Texas cattle baron manages to lose $17,000.00 dollars in what the Texans just call a friendly game among millionaires.As I said Texas Carnival is clearly more Red's film than Esther's and he dominates with a hilarious chuck wagon race finale and one of his patented drunk scenes. What's interesting is that in this film Skelton had Keenan Wynn to contend with in the inebriation competition. Both of these guys have played incredible imbibing scenes in their respective films.In his memoirs Howard Keel says that Red Skelton was a comic genius, but so much so that his contemporaries had trouble keeping up with him. In that barroom scene with Keenan Wynn it took half a day to shoot because Wynn couldn't help breaking up at his performance.Don't look for too much aquatics in this Esther Williams film, but it's a not bad Red Skelton comedy.