Mixed Nuts

Directed by James Parrott

Oddly enough for a Roach comedy the premise of MIXED NUTS is grounded in topical political satire aimed at the New Deal, although the satire is of a very lightweight (and light-hearted) nature. The film begins at a city council meeting where an unidentified politician announces that the government has released $50,000 for the relief of unemployed plumbers. This prompts applause, but also a pointed question from an angry woman who wants to know what the government is going to do for the members of her profession: chorus girls. The politician glibly replies that the administration has set aside money—two million dollars, no less!—for the re-education of chorus girls, "to fit them for the better things in life."