Bob Hope - MGM Movie Legends Collection (Alias
Jesse James/Boy, Did I Get A Wrong
Number!/Facts Of Life/I’ll Take Sweden/The Princess & The Pirate/The
Road To Hong Kong/They Got Me
Covered; DVD-Video)
Picture: C Sound: C+ Extras: D Film: B-
The
rollout of Bob Hope product continues with Bob
Hope - MGM Movie Legends Collection on DVD, bringing together seven of his
films handled by United Artists and Samuel Goldwyn Company together for the
first time. All are comedies, except Facts Of Life, which is somewhat more
dramatic. Hope was one of the biggest
stars for so long, he worked with everyone and that seems to include almost
every studio in Hollywood.
Alias Jesse James is a competent 1959 Westerns
spoof that has dated a bit since its original release, but has Rhonda Fleming
to its advantage and a few gags that still work. Boy,
Did I Get A Wrong Number! casts Hope opposite two unlikely female leads:
sexy Elke Sommer and wacky comedienne Phyllis Diller, who plays a telephone
switchboard operator who mishears a phone conversation and the amusing idiot
plot is hatched. Cesare Danova and
Marjorie Lord also star in this decent A-list comedy from 1966 that makes for
one of the better films in the set and the newest.
The Facts Of Life is a 1960 black and white drama
narrated by Lucille Ball as an unhappily-married character sick of her phony
life, formula friends and was an attempt to expand Lucy’s credibility beyond
comedy landing some Oscar nominations in the process and becoming the most
solemn of al the Hope/Ball co-star films.
I’ll Take Sweden has Tuesday Weld as Hope’s
daughter, immediately smitten with a singer (Frankie Avalon) and making dad
(Hope) unhappy enough to try to break things up by taking her on vacation to
the title destination. When he shows up
and is a hit overseas, this backfires and father does everything he can to try
another location, while being involved with a lady (Dina Merrill) in his life
in a relationship he could jeopardize with his antics. Jeremy Slate plays another guy vying for Jojo
(Weld) in a decently-handled film
The Princess & The Pirate is a 1944 color extravaganza from
Goldwyn that sends up swashbucklers of the time and surrounds Hope with
Virginia Mayo, Walter Slezak, Walter Brennan and Marc Lawrence. Suddenly more timely thanks to Jonny Depp’s
hit Pirates films, it is not bad on
its own.
The Road To Hong Kong is the last of the famed
Hope/Bing Crosby Road films recently sent-up on Family Guy and massacred in Elaine May’s unfortunate Ishtar.
With Asian stereotype aplenty, Joan Collins shows up in this 1962 film
surprisingly in black and white, though the duo still manages to get Dorothy
Lamour to show up as well. Collins is a
spy, they are travelling to Tibet, there are songs, famous cameos and though it
has a few interesting moments, it is clear to see why this was the end of the
“Road” for all.
They Got Me Covered is a Hope/Lamour comedy from 1942
in which reporter Hope misses a big WWII-related story and intends to catch up
with the help of his fiancée (Lamour) in another Goldwyn production that is one
of the tighter films in this set. Spies
once again play a factor.
The various
aspect ratios are all softer than they should be, show how old the transfers
(and DVD masters) used are and in cases where widescreen and full frame are
offers, wide is still better. Five of
the films are 1.33 X 1, but three have marginally better 1.66/1.85 (Number) versions. Sweden
and Hong Kong are 1.66 and there is
three-strip Technicolor fringing errors on Princess
that need serious work. The Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono on all seven films playback better, but not by much, though
all were theatrical mono to begin with. Extras include two trailers on seven films,
which is really bad for all the material that exists on these films and Hope
himself.
For more
on Bob Hope on DVD, try these links:
Bob Hope 100th
Anniversary Collection
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1420/Bob+Hope+100th+Anniversary+Col
Bob Hope – The Ultimate Collection
(Revised DVD Release)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6191/Bob+Hope
- Nicholas Sheffo
