The Inspector General 1949

Georgi, Danny Kaye, a naive and kind-hearted member of a band of Gypsies, is kicked out by their leader Yakov after revealing to villagers that the elixir they were peddling was fake. Tired and hungry, he wanders into the small town of Brodny, and while trying to eat from a horse’s feedbag, he is arrested as a horse thief and sentenced to hang the next day.

Brodny is run by a corrupt Mayor, Gene Lockhart, whose underlings are all his equally corrupt relations. They are frightened when they learn that the Inspector General, Rhys Williams, 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 they coddle him while hoping he will leave as soon as possible. Georgi reunites with Yakov, who poses as his advisor and reveals the suffering the Mayor has 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 Yakov privately negotiates with the Mayor for a much larger sum.

Meanwhile, the Mayor’s wife, Maria, Elsa Lanchester, falls for Georgi, while Georgi himself is drawn to Leza, the Mayor’s kitchen maid, Barbara Bates, 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 cronies plot to have Georgi killed, and they lure him to a barn for a woodcutter to murder him. Instead, Yakov learns of the plot beforehand, knocks Georgi unconscious, and arranges Georgi with his head through a hole in a table, as if he had been decapitated, and the Mayor pays him. Georgi awakens, stops Yakov from absconding with the money, 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.