I love a good shaggy-dog story. And when the movie starts with Joe in a judge's office, asking to have his legal name changed from his current moniker of "Stinky J. McDoakes," you have to figure you're in for a doozie.
Naturally, most of the story is told in flashback, as Joe recounts how he received a telegram stating that his late uncle left him heir to $100,000. But as with all movie inheritances, there has to be a catch: Joe has to prove that he has a male offspring. Happily (sort of), a black-marketer named Fastidious Ferguson (the great character actor Fred Clark) provides him with an instant son, in the form of a teenage delinquent named Stinky (Joe Turkel, three decades away from making his mark on Stanley Kubrick buffs as Lloyd the Bartender in The Shining [!]).
It only gets richer (the story, that is) from here, including another great comic turn from Ralph Nelson, as a sleazy taxman. This is definitely one of Stinky's, er, Joe's best outings.
Our rating: (C) 2012, Steve Bailey.
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