O Valente Treme-Treme

I'm not sure if it was intentionally spoofing The Paleface, or it was a rip-off, but The Court Jester borrowed plenty of gags and most of the storyline from Bob Hope's hilarious western. It also payed homage to plenty of other films, like The Adventures of Robin Hood, but look at the similarities to The Paleface: A hapless fool gets accidentally mistaken for an assassin and a spy, his brunette female companion is much tougher than him, and during a scene when he has to fight in a duel, he gets different pieces of advice and gets them all mixed up. Yes, that's right. Bob Hope gets, "He draws from the left, so lean to the right," mixed up with, "The wind's from the east so aim to the west," and, "He crouches when he shoots,so stand on your toes," in a hilarious build-up to the duel. Needless to say, if you love Danny Kaye's "pellet with the poison" scene, you need to rent The Paleface.

In addition to Bob Hope's hilarious antics and endless jokes about not getting any alone time with his lady love, Jane Russell stars as Calamity Jane in this western spoof. She's tough, pretty, and a master sharpshooter. I'll never understand why two years later, when the leading lady dropped out of the picture, Jane Russell wasn't cast in Annie Get Your Gun. And I'll certainly never understand why she wasn't cast in 1953's Calamity Jane. She could have easily been in both of those musicals!

You're going to have to get past some politically incorrect jokes, and the fact that "Buttons and Bows" won Best Song at the Oscars, but this is a very funny movie that will keep you laughing from start to finish.

*** out of ****

This is a comedy of endless gags and one-liners. You will either find them funny or you won't. I found most of them funny, so I liked it. The highlight is Bob Hope singing "Buttons and Bows".

This works pretty well as a showcase for Bob Hope's comedic and other talents. While it's hardly anything to take seriously, it allows the ever-likable Hope to be himself and to make use of the opportunities for one-liners, sight gags, and a song or two, including his "Buttons and Bows". The story is exaggerated enough to render moot most questions of believability or character motivation.

Hope is in good form, delivering his lines well and in a style that keeps things light-hearted while not pushing it too far. His role as 'Painless' Potter suits him well, and he is able to carry much of the movie by himself. That is fortunate, since most of the rest of the movie is rather slight. Jane Russell starts off well enough, but it's not long before she has little new to offer, and her character is left with some unfulfilled potential. The other characters are mostly one-dimensional to begin with.

Then again, this kind of feature is not really meant to be analyzed. It gives Hope a chance to deliver his easygoing style of comedy, and should just be taken as such. It also worked well enough to provide the basis for a pretty good sequel.

Bob Hope is in his element in this type of role, here he plays a dopey dentist named Painless Peter Potter, he is the kind of dentist that pulls the wrong teeth and gets high on his own laughing gas. Here he manages to get involved with Calamity Jane {a positively smouldering Jane Russell} and a caper set around rouge Cowboys selling guns and dynamite to the Indians. After mistakenly being taken for a hero after repelling an Indian attack and killing a number of them during said attack, we are taken on this delightful journey as Potter the coward transforms himself into a bravado gun slinger whilst not realising it's actually Calamity pulling his strings and shooting the pistols. It's a smashing comedy that perfectly showcases Hope's immeasurable talent for delivering one liners, in fact few comedians in history can deliver a quip better than Hope could. The chemistry between Russell and Hope is as sharp as the writing, and to cap it all off we get the delightful song Buttons & Bows to hum along to, smashing uplifting comedy, 8/10.

An enjoyable comedy western featuring the formidable, if different talents of its leads Bob Hope and Jane Russell. Hope plays his customary cowardy-custard character, a travelling dentist of all things named "Painless" Potter alongside Russell's mannish Calamity Jane as they seek to foil the baddies' nefarious plan to arm the Red Indians, but pay no attention to the plot, just like the two stars, and instead enjoy the fun romp they gleefully rampage through.

Filmed in glorious Technicolor, the film makes ample room for running gags, like Russell's hammer-like kisses and Hope getting pulled out of his wagon-chair every time he gees up the horses, but is best served by Hope and his ad-libs and one-liners (sample:- Hope trying to act tough at the bar - "Give me four fingers of red-eye - and throw in a thumb too!"). The funniest extended scene is probably when Hope and a hot-shot rival stalk each other around town before their shoot-out. The humour trails off somewhat in the last third when the comedy gets too cartoony and slapsticky but there's still some compensation as Russell's glacial heart melts towards her oafish husband.

Sure the treatment of the Red Indians / Native Americans is about as un-PC as you can get, but the real villains are the white guys and along the way Hope gets to sing the catchy singalong "Buttons and Bows". Popular enough to beget a sequel "Son Of Paleface" a few years, this is one of Hope's best comedies sans-Crosby and also demonstrated Russell's comedic talents at the same time.