Let's Face It

Zippy comedy based on a hit Broadway comedy that starred Danny Kaye.

Here it's Bob Hope as the army slacker who sells snacks at a fat farm run by girl friend Betty Hutton. After he wrecks a jeep, he's desperate for money.

Eneter three frustrated wives whose husbands have "gone fishing" for the weekend, leaving them mad. So they decide to "hire" some boys for a party. Eve Arden, Zasu Pitts, and Phyllis Povah are the ladies. But the husband also show up with their dates just as Hutton and friends track down Hope and his two stooges.

Lots of zingy lines as the various couples square off. Hutton sings a couple songs. Co-stars Joseph Sawyer, Dave Willock, Raymond Walburn, Andrew Tombes, Dona Drake, and Cully Richards.

A little research will yield some interesting results sometimes. Let's Face It was originally a very risqué comedy from the Roaring Twenties entitled Cradle Snatchers. It was written by Norma Mitchell and Russell Medcraft and produced on Broadway by Sam Harris and ran 332 performances in 1925. It concerned some college kids working as gigolos who some married women pick up after their husbands take one too many trips out of town for some frolicking of their own. Two of the married women were Mary Boland and Edna May Oliver and one of the college kids was Humphrey Bogart. I would love to have seen this play.

By the way it should be remembered at this time Bogart was playing young juveniles on Broadway and it was he who uttered the line "tennis anyone" for the first time. Maybe it was here.

Fast forward to 1941 and Cole Porter sees the possibilities of this play as a book for one of his musicals. It certainly has the plot elements for his double entendre lyrics. The book was updated to have the gigolos be recent army draftees from a nearby camp and it starred Danny Kaye and Eve Arden.

But as what happens in all of Cole Porter's work it gets watered down so it's a passably good comedy now for Bob Hope. Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn write extra material suited to Betty Hutton. Eve Arden repeats her role as one of the man hungry women. Betty Hutton is in this as the proprietor of a fat farm where three husbands led by Raymond Walburn dump their wives so they can frolic.

Only this time Arden and her chums decide to do some frolicking on their own as in the original play. Who do they pick but Bob Hope and two of his fellow draftees. Hope incidentally is going out with Betty Hutton and she catches wind of the scheme. I think you can figure the rest out.

Cole Porter's score was totally emasculated for the screen version. Some additional numbers were written for Betty Hutton, I don't think Porter exactly wrote her type of material. And of course it even has a Nazi submarine in the plot. That you have to see to believe.

Hope and Hutton do click very well, it's a pity they didn't get to work together again on material that was constructed for them as opposed to something watered down. I imagine you could sure make a film of Cradle Snatchers now without the censor.

But imagine, a story done by Humphrey Bogart, Danny Kaye, and Bob Hope. Great piece of trivia at your next tournament.

The army setting for "Let's Face It" appears to have been used simply because the play and film came out during WWII and it was appealing patriotism. However, this really didn't work well simply because this is NOT a military comedy. Although Bob Hope stars in the film and there are a few wartime references and a submarine near the end, this is no "Caught in the Draft" but a film which has almost nothing to do with the war. Because of this, the overall film seems very strange and Hope and his fellow soldiers seem out of place. This reminds me of most Hollywood college films--where you never see the students attending a single class!! Here, you'd never know a war is on and the three soldiers in the film seem about as menacing as three potatoes.

The story involves three older women who want to cheat on their husbands with three soldiers. And, at the same time, the husbands want to cheat on their wives. When both sides discover what the other is doing, they seek to make their partners jealous and pretend to be having a wonderful time with their gigolo army boyfriends or three young girls. None of this is particularly funny and it's punctuated by an occasional song by Betty Hutton. There are some lesser plots...most of which just aren't funny (such as sneaking food to women at a 'fat farm' and some accompanying fat jokes). I would certainly put this among Hope's lesser films and I can see why it's one of his less famous films. Plus it isn't so much a Hope film as one in which they put Hope in the lead. It just seems very inconsequential and at best a time-passer.

4 snoozes. If that many. Somehow or other, this was on Broadway in the early 40's and ran for a year and a half. Score - not in this movie - by Cole Porter, of all wonderful composers. Danny Kaye in the Hope role and Eve Arden reprising the role she had on the stage. There is no one better in droll delivery than Eve Arden. No one better in anything than Eve Arden. But she can't pull this mediocre nonsense together. Bob Hope tries and goes no further than his usual shtick. And, of course, Betty Hutton is Betty Hutton is Betty Hutton and if you like Betty Hutton, you are home free. For those of us, like myself, who feels as if you might as well be pulling a two ton truck, uphill, and you want to save yourself some energy - let this one rest in the land of best forgotten entertainments from an era that mostly knew better. Outrageously unfunny and, in fact, unkind - the 3 females out on the make to spite their straying husbands - are made fun of and called all sorts of names that would have feminists up in arms today. As well they should be. Anyway, if you like Eve Arden, you'll be happy. AS for the rest -- I think I'd rather go to the dentist.

Between "Anything Goes", "Panama Hattie" and "DuBarry Was a Lady", Cole Porter's Merman show became a shell of themselves on the big screen. This hit 1941 show is his most obscure hit, and the film and TV versions only give a glimpse of what was. The story remains if jealous wives pretending to have their own love nest to get revenge on their philandering husbands. Involved in their schemes are soldier Bob Hope and fat farm proprietor Betty Hutton, creating marital discord and getting hope in hot water with the army.

Hope and Hutton, in their only teaming, are amusing, but it's the three wives who get the best moments even if Betty and Bob get the songs. "I'm going out to get stinking from drinking", Zasu Pitts says, with fellow comic Eve Arden also getting in some great lines. Joining them is "The Women's" Phyllis Povah. The comedy is amusing, but only three of Porter's songs make it into the film. Future Broadway hit writer Jule Styne gets the other three. So as a comedy this works, although there was no reason to throw in a brief spy plot. A missed opportunity that only the talented cast manages to make acceptable.