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By PAUL BRENNER
Another in
the excellent Universal Bob Hope Tribute
Collection Double Feature DVD series pairs up two
Hope films from 1942 -- "My Favorite Blonde" and
"Star Spangled Rhythm."
"Star Spangled Rhythm" (directed by George
Marshall and with sketches written by Arthur Ross,
Norman Panama and Melvin Frank, and George
Kaufman) is not really a Bob Hope film. Hope
appears in it as one of an array of Paramount
stars that perform routines for a gaggle of
sailors. The film is one of those wartime
extravaganzas that culminate in a climactic
patriotic Walpurgisnacht -- in this case, it's
Bing Crosby singing Johnny Mercer and Harold
Arlen's "Old Glory." But "Star Spangled Rhythm" is
a cut above other the Hollywood studios patriotic
jubilees in that inside jokes abound concerning
Paramount studio executives circa 1942. Cecil B
Demille appears as his tyrannical self and ends up
getting torpedoed by Cass Dailey, while Preston
Sturges is seen stalking out of a screening room
in a huff shouting "I'm going to Metro!" before
doing a pratfall over an ashtray; it's enough to
make Myron Selznick laugh out loud from his grave.
Hope finally appears as the emcee and as himself
in a hilarious sketch where he ends up trying to
hide from William Bendix in a shower as Bendix is
scrubbing himself down. Anyone skeptical about
Hope's slapstick talents can look no further than
this scene.
"My Favorite Blonde," however, is all Hope all the
time. This espionage send up of Hitchcock's "The
39 Steps" features Hope as a vaudevillian schnook
who is partners with a penguin in a novelty act --
the penguin ends up busting up the act by getting
a Hollywood contract. If anyone doubts the
seriousness of the film's farcical intentions,
there is a humorless eight minute Hitchcockian set
up before Hope is introduced. To make it official,
the woman Hope teams up with ends up being
Madeleine Carroll, the star of Hitchcock's 1935
thriller. Second banana bad guys Gale Sondergaard
and George Zucco spend their screen time peering
at Hope and Carroll from a distance and
dispassionately uttering lines like "He's got the
scorpion," "They've found the body," and, my
favorite, "Look! It's Percy the Penguin!" But Hope
is not a slacker and he uses the film to hone his
lecherous coward persona with fidgety grace. And
typical for Hope in his heyday, the dialogue
exchanges are hilarious. As in: "I'm a British
agent." "Too late. I already got an agent." Or:
"Do you know what it feels like to be followed and
hounded and watched every second?" "Well, I used
to but now I pay cash for everything."
Both films feature the theatrical trailers,
production notes, and cast and crew bios and
filmographies. |
