This is the final movie on this Bob Hope box set, which covers about the first decade of his career.

And it’s been really fun — from this time period, I’ve mostly watched “classics” (i.e., big name actor/director movies) or B movies from studios that have gone out of business (and are therefore in the public domain). You know — “50 Screwball Comedies for $11” box sets.

But it’s been an eye opener watching so many “jobber” films from a major studio (Paramount, in this case). All these films feature veteran directors who’ve worked in Hollywood since the 20s, and most of them have careers that look like this:

I.e., churning out a handful of movies per year. We’re not talking precious auteurs, but people working for the studios on the films they’re assigned — given reasonable budgets and a really, really professional crew from the cinematographers on down.

So we’re talking, er, like, “standard Hollywood fare”… and these films don’t show up on anybody’s radar (unless they happen to feature an actor that would later become a star).

And… I’m just surprised at how good these Studio movies are. Well made and professional, but also (mostly) done with intelligence, zip and vigour (which is quite different from today’s churned-out popular movies). And probably done with a lot of coke (some things don’t change).

What I’m saying is that the Hollywood Machinery is something to behold, and I want to watch more of these films.

Anyway, back to this movie…

That’s Calamity Jane, see?

EEEEEK!!!

That was the most brutal dentistry scene ever film. Makes the Marathon Man scene look like Teletubbies, so no screenshots!

Oh, it’s that “buttons and bows” song… Which was written for this movie. Oh, and won an Oscar for best song.

This movie really leans into the silly, and I love that. (I mean, the mass slaughter of Native Americans for yucks is… a thing, but still.)

Lots and lots of good gags in here, even if most of them seem really obvious, like? I would have absolutely loved these bits when I was like 11, and I still quite like them.

But the movie does seem to drag slightly in the last third.

Jane Russell is amazing in this, and I laughed out loud several times while watching this, so I guess I have to go with:

The Paleface. Norman Z. McLeod. 1948. ⚄

Well, this is very different from all other Rivette movies I’ve seen. It’s a costume drama? And the dialogue seems very un-improvised.

OK, I take back what I said about this seeming non-improvised.

Oh, that’s where the scary music was coming from!

The choice to have a band apparently improvising music while the shoot is going on is a bold one. Must make editing scenes after the fact virtually impossible.

It’s nice music, though. Very AMM.

The Pirates of Brittany.

This is good, but… there’s so many characters (and many of them look quite similar) that I’m having some problems understanding quite what’s going on. I mean, the plot probably isn’t the point of the movie anyway, but it’s still slightly frustrating.

That is, it’s partially riveting and partially frustrating.

The audio on this movie is really important — the use of music and natural sounds is so interesting. It’s a rather hypnotic movie… but only in the second half. The first half is rather a jumble of stuff and is hard to get into. But the last half! Geez. Fantastic.

I guess a reasonable rating would be ⚃, but I’ll go with:

Noroît. Jacques Rivette. 1976. ⚄

Whee.

Nice.

Very thrifty.

Hey, that’s… that’s… William Demarest! I love him.

And there’s Lucille.

Ooh

I’ve been really impressed by these early Bob Hope movies, and this one has a lot of good gags, too. However, it’s feeling a bit staid? If this had been ten years earlier, there would have been twice the number of jokes and four times the number of lines.

Director Sidney Lanfield didn’t do many movies after this, but moved onto TV.

The concept of the movie isn’t quite clear, either — at first it seemed like the Bob Hope character was a destitute bookie, but then it turns out that he’s just a very… frugal… bookie. (Possibly.) And then it pivots from being a movie about racketeering into being a very uncomfortable Kid-N-Hope kind of thing?

Yeah, exactly — that’s what this movie feels like: A short story that has been through the wringer. So many writers involved.

Ohhh!

Sorrowful Jones was a remake of a 1934 Shirley Temple film, Little Miss Marker.

I thought this seemed familiar! I’ve seen that one! The new kid is plenty cute, but she’s no Shirley Temple.

This movie, unfortunately, just goes Full Schmaltz for the second half of the movie, and it’s really tedious. So while it looks good and stuff, it’s not worth watching, really.

Sorrowful Jones. Sidney Lanfield. 1949. ⚁