Usually the second banana, this time it's Stuart Erwin playing the lead, a salesman who accidently bumps up against the mob boss Moronie. He spends the whole first part of the film trying to tell a girl how he feels, but something always interrupts them. He vows to be more assertive, but clashes with the big boss before that can get straightened out. The usual goofy plot of mistaken identity. Bodies that appear and disappear. It's pretty silly. but entertaining if you just go along for the ride. Directed by Lewis Collins; Collins had started in silents, and moved into talkies. Died young .. a heart attack at 55. This is a Nivel Pictures/Max King Production... but I couldn't find anything on Nivel Pictures (Levin... backwards ?). Max King ony made seven films in the 1940s. not much on him either. Film showing on Moonlight Movies channel. It's pretty good. and some fun old scenery of Los Angeles.

"Killer Dill" is the one and only film made by a low-rent B-movie studio, Max M. King Productions. And considering they never released another film, you could probably assume that the public did NOT flock to theaters to see this film. While the movie isn't bad, I could understand this reaction. First, while I have never really understood the popularity of Stu Erwin in the 1930s, by the late 1940s, his popularity had long passed--making his anchoring of the film more of a deficit than a plus. Second, the basic story idea was done much better in earlier films, such as the wonderful "The Whole Town's Talking".The film finds Erwin playing an underwear salesman in the 1920s (though, as other reviewers have pointed out, the clothes and hair of everyone looks right from the 40s). He is a bit of a wimp and sees that ladies don't like this--the rage is tough gangster-types. So, on a lark, he decides to act tough and see what happens. Through some strange series of events, he not only is noticed by the ladies but the mob...and soon he's on trial for murder! It's all totally ridiculous (with a very dumb court scene), yet it's also mildly amusing and a decent time-passer. High art? Nah...but still a pleasant little story about mistaken identity.

Killer Dill is similar to another movie I've seen recently, "Babyface Morgan" about a regular schmo who is somewhat placed into the criminal underworld by accident, to hilarious results! In Killer Dill's case though, the results are pretty lame though. A regular guy, played by Stuart Ervin, is fighting with his brother for the attention of a goil. She likes adventure in her men, and Ervin isn't cutting it. However, when he notices that she kind of gets off on Gangster men, he tries to be like one, and gets way over his head when the local Mafioso lay the blame on him for an inside whack job on Public Enemy # 21. (Possibly the best joke in the movie). During the trial, he's found innocent, but like O.J., Blake et al, everyone believes he's actually Guilty! So he has to prove he's guilty before there's another inside whack job, this time on him.. This is just OK I guess. The plot is somewhat blah, the humor somewhat silly, and there's some rather unnecessary characters placed for length. (Like the curiously, for no reason whatsoever, Scottish (!!) undertakers) and a rather lack of energy throughout this.

During the Prohibition era, mild-mannered underwear salesman Stu Erwin just happens to be an exact double for a notorious gangster, and winds up as the head of the local mob. Mistaken identity was a pretty hoary old plot device even for 1947, and director Lewis D. Collins does absolutely nothing new with it. Collins spent most of his career churning out cheap B westerns for the lower-rung studios and the even lower-rent independent states rights market, and it shows--the film has the raggedy, cheesy and rushed look of an ultra-cheap oater, and Collins shoots it like one: fast. There's no pacing, no build-up, no nothing, just a hurried succession of stale jokes, contrived situations and lackluster performances. Production values are almost nil--every time someone closes a door you expect to see the set come crashing down--and although it's supposed to take place during the Prohibition era of the 1920s, all the clothing and dialogue are strictly from the '40s, which makes you wonder why they bothered to set it during the 1920s in the first place. That's just one of the many downsides of this alleged "comedy". Do yourself a favor and don't bother to find out what the rest of them are. Skip this one.