Georgi, a naive and kind-hearted member of a band of Gypsies is kicked out by their leader Yakov, after revealing to some villagers that the elixir they were peddling was fake. Tired and hungry, he wanders into the small town of Brodny. Whilst trying to eat from a horse's feedbag, he is arrested as a horse thief and sentenced to hang the next day by the town's corrupt police chief.
Brodny is run by a corrupt Mayor, whose underlings are all his equally corrupt relations. They are frightened when they learn that the Inspector General, an emissary appointed by Napoleon Bonaparte to weed out corruption, is in their region and known to come in disguise. They mistake Georgi for the Inspector, and coddle him whilst trying to make him leave as soon as possible. Georgi reunites with Yakov, who poses as his advisor and reveals the suffering the Mayor inflicted on the townsfolk. To buy back a church organ the Mayor bought with the people's tax money and then sold to another town, Yakov convinces Georgi to collect bribes, but privately negotiates with the Mayor for a much larger sum. Meanwhile, the mayor's wife falls for Georgi, hoping he will whisk her away from her inattentive husband, though Georgi has fallen in love with Leza, the mayor's kitchen maid who inspires him to be a good person and rescue the town.
At a party in his honor, Georgi narrowly avoids being exposed by a friend of the real Inspector General. The Mayor and his ilk plot to have Georgi killed, and lure him to a barn for the woodcutter to murder him. Instead, Yakov learns of the plot beforehand, knocks Georgi unconscious, poses Georgi's head through a hole in a table as if he had been decapitated, and the Mayor pays him. Georgi awakens, stops Yakov from fleeing with the money for himself, and flees with Leza instead.
The real Inspector General arrives, and Georgi is arrested when he returns with Leza and the church organ. Yakov picks the Inspector's pocket for his credentials, briefly saving Georgi's life, but Georgi refuses to have the real Inspector executed and admits his true identity. Moved by his honesty, the Inspector gives Georgi the Mayor's chain of office and names him the new Mayor of Brodny, while telling the prior mayor "We'll put something else around your neck." Yakov becomes the new chief of police, Leza and Georgi become a couple, and the town celebrates Georgi's official appointment.
Johnny Green won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Score for his work on the film.[3] Kaye's wife Sylvia Fine wrote the original songs "The Inspector General" and "Happy Times," both sung by Kaye in the film.[4] "Happy Times" was, in fact, the working title of the film.[5]
^ abcWarner Bros financial information in The William Shaefer Ledger. See Appendix 1, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, (1995) 15:sup1, 1-31 p 30 DOI: 10.1080/01439689508604551
^'The Top Box Office Hits of 1950', Variety, January 3, 1951
^"Sylvia Fine: The Woman Behind the Curtain". Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine: Two Kids from Brooklyn (Library of Congress Exhibition.). February 14, 2013. Retrieved January 3, 2017.
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