TV Quote of the Week

To all you Johnny-come-latelies out there, you who had this business handed to you like an inheritance and a legacy, all of you, you who never had to scramble or bleed to give birth to it or keep it alive, let me say this:

There were a lot of people who couldn’t speak English so good, that paved the way for you. And they broke their backs, and they did it in cellars, and they did it in attics trying to figure out which way to aim the camera so all of you “Angry Young Men” could say that you were part of an art form.

Now I’m speaking of people like Jesse Lansky, D. W. Griffith, Mack Sennett, and let us not forget a funny little man with baggy trousers and a Nazi moustache. They had talent. They loved what they were doing, and people loved them for doing it. But you don’t love to make movies, and that is a shame. Because you don’t know what you’re missing.
--Rod Steiger, Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theater, “Slow Fade to Black”

Mother of Mercy! Is This the Middle of My Favorite Brunette?

When we last tuned into In Medias Res Theatre, actor Victor Moore was demonstrating to Dorothy Lamour in On Our Merry Way how easily one could create a sarong by simply sewing together three extremely large handkerchiefs. Personally I was a bit surprised that the Hays Office let them get away with that scene since the last thing they usually tolerated was the implication that a film’s leading lady could get away with wearing little more than a few handkerchiefs. But those were different times and different mores. Besides, the past is a difficult country; we are not supposed to make sense of what they do there.

Anyway, this week in In Medias Res Theatre, Dorothy Lamour and Bob Hope got captured by a gang of nogood-niks at a local sanitarium who took away their clothes so that they could not escape. Fortunately, for the sake of the Hays Office, they left them both big fluffy robes to put on and in any event, it soon became evident to even the most disinterested viewer, that the bad guys did not take all of Ms. Lamour’s wardrobe but only her outer clothing, allowing her to retain a modest black slip which they no doubt justified on the principle that they might be depraved thieves and murderers but even they would not dare stoop so low as to deprive a woman of her modesty.

Needless to say, there was a lot more to the 1947 movie My Favorite Brunette than that one scene and indeed, I found this film a lot more enjoyable than the usual Bob Hope vehicle. Perhaps it is because it was made near the beginning of Hope’s career when he still gave a damn about his movies or because it is because one of the first films Hope had a financial stake in, giving him an incentive to make things as audience-friendly as possible.

Of course, not all the credit for the movie went to Mr. Hope. Ms. Lamour had her share of good scenes too -- and without once having to slip into a sarong though there were a few scenes in which she was forced to don a surprisingly well-fitting maid’s uniform. My favorite character among the film’s various bad guys was Peter Lorre’s Kismet, a mysterious foreign-born doctor whose favorite pastime -- apart from knife-throwing -- seemed to consist of taunting native-born Americans with how much more he knows about American history and politics than they do. Of course, he did all this while studying for an upcoming citizenship test, a practice that would seem to indicate that even no-good evil foreigners were intent on becoming American citizens back in the 1940s.

Also memorable was a minor role by Lon Chaney, Jr. as Willie, an orderly on the sanitarium who had a fondness for walnuts and the strength to bend iron bars. Hope, of course, tried to use this last trait to his advantage but things did not quite work out that way.

In any event, despite a less than flattering cinematography which made more than a few scenes seem a lot darker than they should be -- which might be related to the fact that the film is now in public domain -- I quite enjoyed My Favorite Brunette. I could have done without a certain cameo towards the end but apart from that, I liked it just fine. I just wish I could say the same about all Bob Hope movies.

Movie Song of the Week: “Silver Bells”

From 1951's The Lemon Drop Kid, it's the original movie version of “Silver Bells,” a song that has become as identified with Bob Hope as the song “Thanks for the Memories.”

I don't always care for most of the Bob Hope movies I've seen but I did like this one. Perhaps because the movie was inspired by an old Damon Runyon short story. Or perhaps because it has moments that are actually funny. Plus you have Marilyn Maxwell, who plays Hope's girlfriend and vocal accompanist in this number and who is easy on both the eyes and the ears.

Btw, if that guy in the Santa suit at the beginning of the clip -- the one who isn't Bob Hope, of course -- looks familiar, it's because he's William Frawley, an actor who is most famous for playing Fred Mertz on the TV series I Love Lucy -- as well as for having a key role in another famous Christmas movie.

Anyway, I hope you all like it.