À Paris tous les deux

The Mystery is why is this film not as good as it should have been. I've given it a 7, but it had the potential to be even better. Our two comics are good when they are together, but the courtroom scene is dragged out, and several scenes are very dark. However, the beauty of this film is in the viewing of Martha Hyer, Anita Ekberg, and Irene Tunc! All three are drop-dead gorgeous, and really contribute to the movie! Irene should have been given a bigger part! See it in wide-screen if possible.

There were so many spy spoofs in the 1960's that I think people don't get how fresh and original this spy spoof was in 1958.

The great French comedian and Bob Hope play off of each other wonderfully. It is amazing because neither spoke the other's language. Both have to resort to slapstick and pantomime. The first scene where they meet and Fernandel stares at Bob Hope's large nose and calls it "extraordinaire, formidable, and fantastique".

As a bonus, we get to see Anita Ekberg in a pre-La Dolce Vita role. She plays the femme fatale and steals every scene that she is in. A brief appearance by Preston Sturges is also a highlight.

I think a lot of people don't like the swift movement between sophisticated comedy and slap-stick. However I enjoyed the mixture. The hanging from a helicopter ending reminds one of many silent screen Keystone Cops crazy endings. I'm a fan of silent films, so I enjoyed it as an homage, but I can understand people dismissing it as weak and derivative.

It is unintended irony, I suspect, that the plot of this movie - what little there is of it - centers around Bob Hunter's (Hope) efforts to find a script. This movie could certainly have used a better one. Hope and especially Fernandel were great comedians, but they have virtually nothing to work with here, so the movie drags from one uninteresting scene to the next.

How a picture executive could have believed that anyone would pay money to see this, much less, after having seen it, tell anyone else to see it, I can't imagine. It really is one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time.

Bob Hope takes a ship to France. He plans to buy the American rights to playwright Preston Sturges' latest movie. On board he meets Fernandel, with whom he bonds, and embassy officer Martha Hyer, whom he pursues. Sturges, it turns out, is not interested in selling his latest, serious work. Instead, he is murdered, and Hope is wanted as a witness. But now the mysterious people who killed Sturges are after Hope. Assassin Anita Ekberg doesn't wish to kill him. Instead, she deposits him in an insane asylum.

Although Fernandel is credited as co-star, it's a Bob Hope movie all the way. His quips fall flat; in the early sequences, he is offering them to himself, and the lack of a target makes him look loopy rather than funny. Director Gerd Oswald can't seem to deal with either of his two stars. Despite the handsome images lensed by DP Roger Hubert, it's neither particularly funny, nor, despite a long sequence in which Fernandel is piloting a helicopter with Hope dangling from a rope ladder, thrilling.

Though this is not a good film for Bob Hope, it has one redeeming feature. It gave American audiences exposure to the great French comedian, Fernandel.

Fernandel almost was given the role of Passepartout the French valet to David Niven in Around the World in 80 Days. In fact he was going to learn English for the role. It fell through and the part was played by Cantinflas whose style was similar to Fernandel. Too bad for Fernandel that Around the World in 80 Days didn't work out for him.

Because Fernandel didn't speak English that presented problems trying to team him with Bob Hope. It was handled rather clumsily, Fernandel's part in the film was completely superfluous to the plot.

Nothing extraordinary about the plot itself. Hope's an American actor in Paris who comes across a nasty gang and he agrees to help both American and French authorities to capture them. Along for female decoration are Anita Ekberg and Martha Hyer. It's a Bob Hope movie, not one of his best, so I'm sure you can figure out the plot from here on in.

Fernandel has a few good moments though. There is a scene where he's trying to get in an insane asylum to rescue Hope and he's trying to convince the guard in front that he's crazy. So a certain amount of craziness follows and he's outstanding.

His biography here says he worked in a bank when he was young. But that long horse-face of his made people laugh, so to use an American expression, Fernandel took a lemon and made lemonade. If they're going to laugh, I'll get paid for it.

I wish some of his films were available here in the USA. I could easily even in this film see why he was such a national treasure in France.