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By PAUL BRENNER
As Frankenstein's Monster might say, "Movie Hope good, Television Hope bad."
Well at least in general -- if it's a Paramount Picture (the best of the lot
produced by Robert L. Welch) and before the time The Adventures of Jerry Lewis
supplanted The Adventures of Bob Hope in the DC Comics comedy corner. Now
Universal has released an incredible collection of double-feature discs -- "Bob
Hope: The Tribute Collection Double Features" -- showcasing Bob Hope at his
greatest (forget television and permanently blot it from your mind).
The double feature of "Sorrowful Jones" and "The Paleface" are two of the best
Hope films. "The Paleface," from 1948, directed by veteran comedy director
Norman Z. McLeod and written by Edward Hartmann and Frank Tashlin, was Hope's
most commercially successful comedy. Hope's film character as a well-meaning
cowardly schnook is solidified as a film comedy icon in this film. Hope plays
"Painless" Potter, a dentist in the old west who teams up with Calamity Jane
(Jane Russell, in a star-making role) to defeat a collection of nefarious bad
guys and Technicolor Indians. Western clichés are gently mocked and the hero and
heroine roles are switched. Here pillar of strength is Russell and the weakling
is Hope -- with Hope as the phony gunslinger legend anticipating Ford's
non-comedic "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence" by a good fourteen years. The
comedy stems from casting Hope as a heroic lead in a Western that without his
presence could conceivably have been played straight -- unlike a comic burlesque
all the actors play their roles as if they are getting paid by Herbert Yates at
Republic Pictures. The trademark Hope wisecracks are ever present ("Remember,
you promised to love, honor, and protect me." "Yeah. Let's do it in the order
named.") but they meld effortlessly with perfectly executed physical comedy
routines. As James Agee hinted at, Hope had become, with "The Paleface," the
perfect sound era film comic.
1949's "Sorrowful Jones" (directed by Hope house director Sidney Lanfield) is
based on Damon Runyon stories and most particularly 1934's "Little Miss Marker,"
Hope taking on the role originated by Adolphe Menjou in the old Shirley Temple
flick. Hope's Sorrowful Jones is a cynical New York bookie ("He fell in love
with money at the age of six and they've been going steady ever since") whose
icy soul gets defrosted by a cute little girl who is orphaned when gangsters rub
out her father. This film marks the first time Hope sublimated his popular
persona for a character role. The Hope wisecracks are still there but are
tempered with some well-played sentimental scenes (particularly a scene in which
Sorrowful Jones puts the little girl to sleep by singing the racing form to
her). "Sorrowful Jones" also marks the first film teaming with Lucille Ball, who
plays Sorrowful's hardboiled girlfriend in the same manner she used to fend off
the Marx Brothers a decade earlier in "Room Service."
Both films contain theatrical trailers, production notes, and cast and crew
bios. The films are subtitled in English, French, and Spanish. |
