My Favorite Blonde **** (1942, Bob Hope, Madeleine Carroll, Gale Sondergaard, George Zucco) – Classic Movie Review 1,276

Bob Hope is at his hilarious peak as a vaudeville performer who gets mixed up with British and German secret agents in the fast and funny 1942 comedy film My Favorite Blonde. Madeleine Carroll is alluring as the Favorite Blonde.

Bob Hope is at his hilarious peak as a vaudeville performer who gets mixed up with British and German secret agents in director Sidney Lanfield’s extremely fast and funny 1942 comedy My Favorite Blonde that came like a breath of fresh air during the dark days of the war. It really cheers the soul and raises the spirits.

He stars as Larry Haines, a mediocre vaudeville entertainer with a roller-skating performing penguin called Percy. Aiming for Hollywood, Haines boards a train bound for Los Angeles and he meets alluring English blonde spy Karen Bentley (Madeleine Carroll), who is carrying a coded message hidden in a brooch and is being pursued by German agents.

Then he does what anyone would do under the circumstances – he tries to save her from the Nazis who are chasing her for her wartime aircraft secrets in the days just before America’s entry into World War Two.

There are plenty of laughs in Don Hartman and Frank Butler’s energetic and witty wisecracking screenplay. Director Lanfield takes it at a commendably fast pace. so there are no flat or dull bits. Perhaps inspired by the screenplay, Hope is on his top, most energised, fired-up form, Carroll is indeed alluring as the Favorite Blonde, and the villains are in the right, safe hands of Gale Sondergaard (as Madame Stephanie Runick) and George Zucco (as Dr Hugo Streger).

There is also a cameo appearance by Hope’s buddy Bing Crosby as ‘Man Giving Directions’. The story is by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama.

Hope lived to be 100 on May 29 2003, but alas he wasn’t well enough to keep his booked-in show date at the London Palladium that night and he died on July 27 2003.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1,276

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more film reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/