La mia brunetta preferita

Bob Hope is very funny in this enjoyable light comedy. The plot is deliberately crazy and implausible, but creative, and it sets up some funny situations. The rest of the cast is good too, and it all works very well as light entertainment.

Hope plays a photographer who longs to be a detective, and then gets his chance, only to find out that it's a lot more than he can handle. It's a fine role for Hope, and the script also gives him a lot of good material to work with. Dorothy Lamour is suitably mysterious as the woman who involves him in a complicated situation. Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney Jr. add atmosphere and humor as two of Hope's adversaries.

Anyone who likes Hope should enjoy seeing him in "My Favorite Brunette", and it is also recommended for anyone who likes light comedies of the era.

The film concerns Ronnie Jackson (Bob Hope) a quite shy baby photographer gets mistaken with his next door neighbour Sam McCloud (Alan Ladd) , a famous San Francisco private eye . The problems start when the Baroness Carlotta Montay (Dorothy Lamour) contracts Ronnie to find her husband (Frank Puglia) and investigate about a map what marks the location of a Criolita (uranium) deposit that would be the key for defense of free world . It will lead him by the way to an international intrigue . Meanwhile , Ronnie to confront a villain Major (Charles Dingle) and his heavies (henchmen: Peter Lorre, Lon Chaney Jr. ,John Hoyt) .

The picture results to be a hilarious spy caper with lots of fun , giggles , laughs , tongue-in cheek and a little bit of action and suspense . The movie is the following to¨My favorite blonde¨(by Sidney Lanfield) who starred Hope and Madeleine Carroll as his partenaire. There appears some cameos and guest appearances of famed stars , such as Alan Ladd as the typical tough detective and Bing Crosby in a likable final interpretation . Bing Crosby along with Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour formed a famous trio with too much success and they starred numerous films with titles as ¨Road to..Bali , Road to ..Morocco,.. Zanzibar , ...Hong Kong¨, among others . Besides , appearing as a secondary actor the terror expert Lon Chaney Jr. , repeating his role of the simple-minded person in the film adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel :¨Mice and men¨(1939) , Chaney's performance as an innocent burly man is spectacularly touching and amusing . In addition , Peter Lorre , as always , plays an astute villainous and with skills for throwing deadly daggers . The motion picture was well directed by Eliott Nugent . The flick will appeal to Bob Hope fans .

This movie offers an abundance of laughs with Hope as a baby photographer turned detective who is clearly out of his element. Dorothy Lamour is sexy and funny as Bobs love interest. Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney Jr. add the sinister part to the movie and are good straight men for Hopes antics. This type of comedy was popular in the 40's but few could pull it off as well as Hope could. He is, in my opinion, better without a partner such as Bing to bring in the laughs. It is a fun picture to watch.

Bob Hope in one of his better comedies of the 1940s, a clever satire of noir mysteries (Raymond Chandler, in particular) which substitutes hard-boiled for soft-boiled without losing the essence of a good crime story. A baby-photographer in San Francisco is found in the neighboring offices of a vacationing private detective by a femme fatale, who unwittingly hires the would-be gumshoe to help find her missing uncle. Edmund Beloin and Jack Rose penned the dandy original screenplay, neatly skirting the spoofy/silly undercurrent which marred many of Hope's starring vehicles of the era. Dorothy Lamour (with the wonderful character name Carlotta Montay) is the supposedly schizophrenic and paranoid client; Peter Lorre is her evil valet; and nobody cracks walnuts like muscle-stooge Lon Chaney. Fresh and witty, with a surprising hint of sex appeal, a solid production, and two terrific star-cameos as a bonus. *** from ****

When baby photographer Ronnie Jackson (Bob Hope) office-sits for traveling p.i. Sam McCloud, he finds his dreams of playing detective coming all too true all too soon when mysterious damsel-in-distress Carlotta Montay (Dorothy Lamour) sashays into his office. Soon our hero is up to his ski-nose in trouble as he and his comely client are chased by a gang of cutthroats with designs on Carlotta's uncle's uranium (that's right, uranium!). One of Hope's best comedies, BRUNETTE deftly spoofs hard-boiled private eye thrillers of the era with a barrage of uproarious one-liners and set pieces. Hope and Lamour's usual comic/romantic chemistry is at its finest amid a nifty supporting cast including Peter Lorre, the unfairly uncredited Jean Wong (a delight as Mrs. Fong, mother of a tot so loathe to smile that Ronnie quips, "This kid's gonna grow up to be a sponsor!"), Lon Chaney Jr. (essentially playing his classic and oft-imitated OF MICE AND MEN role for laughs), and a couple of cameos too hilarious to spoil here (including the Paramount tough guy who appears as McCloud)! The DVD currently available doesn't have the most pristine print, but it's got some fun interactive features, including a trivia quiz. I only hope somebody decides to give this cheeky, cheerful farce the Criterion-caliber treatment it deserves! UPDATE for 2011: There's a remastered Bob Hope DVD collection available from The Shout Factory, including a gorgeous print of MY FAVORITE BRUNETTE, complete with Paramount logo! HOORAY!