THE MEANEST MAN IN THE WORLD: file this one under 'What Was He Thinking?'

Jack Benny's penultimate film offers slim pickings for fans of his peerless radio show.
Not only does 1943's THE MEANEST MAN IN THE WORLD clock in at a meagre 57 minutes but it lacks depth or any moments of real humour. Any one of his radio shows packs more laughs and characterisation into its 30 minute running time than does this movie.
He plays Richard Clarke, a kind hearted and (therefore) unsuccessful small town lawyer who moves to Manhattan in hopes of making his fortune and discovers that behaving like a ruthless heel is the fast track route to  success. His mean reputation brings him a waiting room full of callous clients but it also threatens his romance with hometown sweetheart Janie Brown, played by Priscilla Lane.
Now I'm a huge Jack Benny fan, and I came to this film wanting to like it. His radio shows contain some of the sharpest comedy ever written, and the character he created of Jack Benny the mean, egotistical, childish comedian and deluded violinist is without equal. Far more than simply a collection of catch phrases and jokes, the radio Jack Benny is a three dimensional, living, breathing person.
Which makes THE MEANEST MAN IN THE WORLD even more puzzling.
Why did Benny allow himself to be cast in a part that didn't suit his persona, in a film with a script that is so shallow, juvenile and bereft of good lines that it couldn't fail to disappoint his legions of fans?
Where did the magic disappear to?
It's not simply a case of a radio performer failing to make the transition to the big screen. The
previous year Benny had scored an enormous critical and popular hit with 'To Be Or Not To Be' under the direction of the legendary Ernst Lubitsch. There's no question that he had the acting chops to complement his masterful sense of comedic timing, but what's missing from MEANEST MAN is a quality script. 
The film was made by Twentieth Century Fox at a time when the studio was also hard at work destroying the reputation of Laurel and Hardy with a series of increasingly dire comedy features, and  a similar sense of tired, threadbare desperation pervades MEANEST MAN. There's nothing engaging about the story or the performances and the only incentive to keep watching is the increasingly forlorn hope that some of the familiar magic must burst forth at some point.
With Laurel and Hardy's 40s output that never happened and their stint at Fox proved to be their big screen swansong. Benny was much luckier. He escaped with his career and reputation intact and ended his days as an elder statesman of American comedy.