Product: My Favorite Brunette [VHS] (1947)
Rating: 4.0
Good Hope
I grew up familiar with Bob Hope as a movie comedian and my memory of his humor was fairly positive. I hadn't seen any of his movies for years and when I had the chance recently, I came away disappointed. I was beginning to wonder if I was a poor judge of humor in my youth but I think "My Favorite Brunette" set me straight. This is a funny movie and brings out all of Hope talents as a comedian. It helps that the movie itself is a satire on the "Film Noir" standard of the '40's and early '50's. Alan Ladd does a cameo appearance as the hard-boiled private eye that Ronnie Jackson (Bob Hope) aspires to become. An opportunity falls in his lap and off we go. Hope bounces from crisis to crisis alternating his expert talent at wise-cracking with his own self-deprecating humor. I thought the movie was aided by a decent cast of characters including the likes of Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney Jr. There was enough of a mystery in the plot to add to the interest level. However, this movie was a vehicle for Bob Hope and it suceeds because of how well he delivers.I was glad to be able to "rediscover" Hope as a comedian and I thought about how I got misdirected recently. I realized that what I had been watching of late were "Road to..." movies where he teamed up with Bing Crosby. I realized that, despite the popularity of this team, those movies stifled Hope's talents. I remembered some of his movies that I liked so well from my youth and I realized that none of them included Crosby. It's just a theory but I enjoyed the way that Hope plays his style of humor off everyone and I think it suffered when he had to focus that style primarily on one ploy (Crosby). Maybe I'm not giving enough credit to the writers but watch "My Favorite Brunette" and then watch any of the "Road" movies and see if you don't detect a noticable decline in the quality of Hope's screen persona. I'm fired up to check out some more movies with Hope doing his solo act.