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MovieMail's Review
Before he became court jester to a half-dozen Presidents, before a string of dated farces put the brakes on his movie career, Bob Hope was a truly great screen comedian. From his breakthrough in 1939's The Cat and the Canary until well into the '50s, his jumpy, wisecracking, skirt-chasing persona put smiles on faces and bums on seats. Sure, top writers were working overtime to fuel his laugh-a-minute romps, but the delivery was all his own.
The Great Lover, released at the height of his popularity, is prime Hope: a fast-paced comedy-thriller that delivers amply on both counts.
Bob plays a newspaperman from North Zanesville (“not even Zanesville”), trapped aboard an ocean liner and forced to babysit seven ‘Boy Foresters’ – over-eager scouts who place a premium on clean-living. “I promise I’ll be a good Boy Forester,’ he tells them, wary that group leader Richard Lyon’s father is his boss. “No tobacco? No alcohol?” asks Lyon. “No tobacco. No alcohol,” Hope replies. “No women?” “No tobacco,” says Hope.
The title’s a little misleading. Bob’s no Casanova – he just wants to pursue penniless countess Rhonda Fleming. The suspense, meanwhile, is supplied by Roland Young, as an aristocratic card-sharp with a sideline in strangulation. After garrotting George Reeves (later TV's Superman) in the opening scene, he’s looking for the perfect patsy, and thinks guileless Bob may just fit the bill.
There are laughs aplenty. Hope's court-martial at the hand of the Foresters is a joy (“Observed in embrace of female, not his mother,” pipes up little Gary Gray) and his juvenile revenge funnier still, as he blows smoke through the scouts’ ceremonial bugle. Even Bob’s faked demise is just the set-up for another great joke. “In my opinion, he’s alive and hiding somewhere on this boat,” Young tells the scouts. “Alive?” replies Lyon. “He would pull a trick like that.”
The film’s slapstick sequences are nicely realised and there’s also an embryonic version of Fawlty Towers’ ‘talking moose’ routine, as Bob gives voice to a bilingual dog. It’s Hope, constantly quipping, who dominates this hugely enjoyable film. He's in peak form and even gets to duet with Fleming on the lovely ‘Lucky Us’.
Hope plays a scoutmaster chaperoning a troop of scouts aboard an ocean liner. However, he is far more interested in the charms of the exotic Duchess Alexandria. But when a homicidal gambler tries to frame him for murder, its up to the boys to save the situation.
