Fancy Pants *** (1950, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Bruce Cabot) – Classic Movie Review 8244

Director George Marshall’s 1950 comedy Fancy Pants is a funny musical re-interpretation of the 1935 Ruggles of Red Gap, with the delicious, ideally paired two stars Bob Hope and Lucille Ball having bags of fun sparring for attention.

Hope goes way out West as Arthur Tyler, an American actor pretending to be a gentleman’s gentleman or butler/valet called Humphrey, who is assigned by his employer Effie Floud (Lea Penman) to look after her daughter, non-stop chatterbox, Agatha Floud (Ball).

Marshall, who made the classic comedy Western Destry Rides Again, handles his leads perfectly and lets the lively comic situations develop tastily without too much plot or unnecessary action to get in the way of the jolly humour. Hope sings a song, ‘Home Cookin’ (by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans), which might be considered as a plus, but Lucille Ball’s song ‘(Hey) Fancy Pants!’ is dubbed by Annette Warren. Ball was the best at comedy but had a terrible singing voice.

Also in the cast are Bruce Cabot, Jack Kirkwood, Eric Blore, John Alexander, Lea Penman, Virginia Keilsey, Percy Helton, Robin Hughes, Hope Sansberry, Hugh French, Chester Conklin, Edgar Dearing, Grace Albertson, Joseph Vitale, Ida Moore, Norman Varden, Ethel Wales, Jean Ruth, Jimmie Dundee, Bob Kortman, Sam Harris, Gilchrist Stuart, Olaf Hytten, Almira Sessions and Hank Bell.

Fancy Pants is directed by George Marshall, made and released by Paramount, is written by Edmund L Hartmann and Robert O’Brien, based on the story by Harry Leon Wilson, and is shot in Technicolor by Charles Lang Jnr.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8244

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