Based on a true story, this movie brings off some very unusual things. For example, Jason Robards is not a person you'd expect to bring off the role of a straight man in Vaudeville. While you can tell he is not comfortable in the role, he does more than a walk through in this one. Britt Ekland is in no way an Amish Woman. Who decided to cast her as one is strange. The thing is because she is good looking she fits the story.
Elliot Gould is young here without much script so it is one of his lesser roles. He does OK with it. Forrest Tucker is a nice surprise though another limited role. Bert Lahr has a role as Professor Spats which resembles the emcee in Cabaret and considering he looks ill in most of his scenes he is better here than it is reasonable to expect.
I think if this had been released in the 1950's it would have sold a lot of tickets. The trouble with 1968 is this type of film was DOA in that era. Even Julie Andrews expensive production "Star" did nothing in this time period. In a way Minsky's actually is better. It does a decent job giving a feel of what Vaudeville was really like.
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