Half a Hero on AllMovie

Red Skelton does his best with the situation-comedy trappings of Half a Hero. A sort of poor man's Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, the story concerns one Ben Dobson (Skelton), whose wife Martha (Jean Hagen) talks him into leaving the big city and moving into a suburban housing development. Unfortunately, Ben doesn't make enough money to support his new life style, but Martha refuses to consider moving back downtown. When Ben's boss tells him to write a magazine article about the disadvantages of suburbia, Ben seizes upon the opportunity, hoping to teach his wife a lesson, and then, suddenly and improbably, our hero has a change of heart. Domestic comedy was not Red Skelton's forte, but he manages to extract a few laughs with the material at hand. Much funnier within the film's context is Kathleen Freeman as a "welcome wagon" lady and Willard Waterman as an unctuous real estate broker.