“BOB
HOPE’S 10 GALLON HATSâ€
By
Raymond Benson
Sometimes
a little Bob Hope goes a long way. There’s no denying that Hope was one of the
more popular comic stars of the 1940s and 50s. His star began to wane in the
60s, and then most of the Baby Boomer generation knew him as perhaps the
greatest host that the Academy Awards ceremony ever had.
During
Hope’s most active years, he made many solo pictures that were truly funny. He
was also established as Bing Crosby’s partner in the massively successful “Road
to…†movies, which arguably launched Hope’s career as a leading or co-leading
man in 1940. When the scripts and direction were good, then Hope’s solo films
were superb. That was not always the case.
The
Paleface
(1948) was co-written by Frank Tashlin (with Edmund Hartmann), who would also
go on to write and direct the sequel, Son of Paleface (1952, co-written
with Joseph Quillan and Robert L. Welch. Tashlin spent many years making
cartoons, hopping in and out of big studios such as Warner Brothers’ Looney
Tunes/Merrie Melodies unit (Tashlin made Porky Pig and other characters’
shorts), Disney Studios, and other indie animation companies. His approach to
directing live action shockingly mimicked his methodology for zany cartoons.
Much of Son of Paleface contains the kind of sledgehammer action, albeit
accomplished with visual effects, and slapstick that is more at home with a
character like Daffy Duck.
Both
movies are western comedies and are among Hope’s more profitable pictures. He
is often costumed in ten-gallon hats that no self-respecting cowboy would wear.
For this reviewer’s money, the first title is the better of the two. It is at
least grounded in some degree of reality, whereas the second film is all-out
wackiness. Both movies co-star Jane Russell, who adds not only glamour to the
proceedings, but also a straight-woman sensibility off of whom Hope plays quite
well. It is this reviewer’s opinion that Jane Russell was underrated as a comic
actress and singer/dancer.
In
The Paleface, Hope is “Painless Potter,†a dentist in the Old West who is
mistaken to be a federal agent by smugglers selling guns and explosives to the
Indians. Calamity Jane (Russell), an outlaw herself, is hired by the government
to identify and help bring down the traitors. She eventually uses Potter as
cover, allowing him to marry her, so that they can travel with a wagon train
and weed out the bad guys.
Son
of Paleface is
a sequel in that it features Hope as Potter’s grown son, “Junior†Potter, many
years later—it’s still the Old West, but the modern age is just around the
corner. Junior drives a jalopy (that’s actually years ahead of the time depicted
in the movie). This time, Russell plays a saloon chorus girl named “Mike,†who
is the civilian identity of a gold thief called “The Torch.†The Torch leads a
gang of outlaws who are pursued by “Roy†(the inimitable Roy Rogers, who
co-stars with his horse, Trigger—“the smartest horse in the movies,†as he is
billed in the credits). Junior has come to town to find and collect his
father’s stash of gold, only to find that his dad owed money to everyone. Mike
uses Junior as cover, but Roy soon becomes wise to her and sets out to foil
Mike, her band of robbers, and Junior, who is unwittingly caught in the middle.
The
Paleface is
funny and enjoyable, if embarrassingly sexist and politically incorrect by
today’s standards (its treatment of Native Americans makes one want face-palm
and shake a head). The director, Norman Z. McLeod, had been making comedies
since the silent days, and he had helmed two of the Marx Brothers’ best titles,
Monkey Business (1931) and Horse Feathers (1932). Hope has some
great bits, and he also delivers the Academy Award-winning Best Song of that
year, “Buttons and Bows†(by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans). The movie is decent
entertainment, but there’s no question that it’s dumb.
Son
of Paleface,
on the other hand, is not just dumb—it’s so absurd that it’s ridiculous. The
aforementioned cartoonish direction by Tashlin takes what might have been
something akin to The Paleface and turns it into burlesque zaniness that
plays to a low common denominator of an audience. Poor Roy Rogers seems
desperately out of place in this collection of sight gags that are rarely
funny, and frankly, Hope’s Junior character simply comes off as obnoxious and
annoying throughout the picture. Once again, though, Russell rises above the
antics and delivers a fine performance—and Trigger almost steals the movie with
some amazing tricks and stunts.
The
two movies are available separately from Kino Lorber. The high definition
restorations look remarkably good, especially Son of Paleface. The
Paleface comes with English subtitles for the hearing impaired and an audio
commentary by film historian and critic, Sergio Mims. Supplements on the disk
include two short featurettes—one about Hope entertaining the troops, and the
other an edited episode of “Command Performance,†from 1945, which was a filmed
variety show sent out to the armed forces during the war—and the theatrical
trailer for this and other Kino Lorber titles. Son of Paleface comes
with an audio commentary by filmmaker Greg Ford. The supplement on this disk is
a rare “lost†stop-motion animated short with puppets made by Frank Tashlin in
1946 called “The Lady Said No,†which pieces together existing color footage
with black and white found excerpts. It also comes with a commentary by Ford.
The cartoon is about a Mexican romance in which the hapless hero pursues the
girl of his dreams until he marries her, and then the stork delivers baby after
baby, much to the man’s horror. It is jaw-droppingly politically incorrect
today, but a potent gem for historical study. This disk also includes Kino
trailers.
Solid
Bob Hope fans will want both The Paleface and Son of Paleface—the
Kino Lorber releases are top-notch in presentation quality. Whether or not
these are classics of Hollywood comedy, however, is debatable.
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