La brune de mes rêves

The 1940's was a very prolific period for Bob Hope as he made 21 movies during that decade including some of his very best (the "Road" films of course with Crosby and Lamour, "The Paleface" with Jane Russell, and "My Favorite Blonde" with Madeleine Carroll). However, "Brunette" rates as high, if not higher, than any of these as it had a very funny script and a wonderful supporting cast including Peter Lorre, Lon Chaney Jnr, John Hoyt, Ann Doran, Reginald Denny, Ray Teal, Jack La Rue and a couple of surprise star cameos. Peter Lorre in particular seemed to enjoy sending up his usual image as a sinister killer.

San Francisco baby photographer Ronnie Jackson (Bob Hope) has unfulfilled ambitions to be a private detective like his neighbour in the next office Sam McCloud. When Sam goes out of town Carlotta Montay (Dorothy Lamour) comes in seeking help and mistakes Hope for the detective who thinks this could be the big chance to prove himself but as usual in a Hope film he runs into more trouble than he can handle. Lamour persuades Hope to look for her uncle who has been kidnapped by the villains and a double put in his place. The plot thickens as he accompanies Lamour into many ludicrous situations, unforeseen danger and one hilarious episode after another.

Some favourite lines from the film:

Bob Hope: "You see, I wanted to be a detective too. It only took brains, courage and a gun - and I had the gun!".

Bob Hope: "I was cut out for this kind of life. All my life I've wanted to be a hard boiled detective like Humphrey Bogart, or Dick Powell ... or even Alan Ladd!".

Bob Hope (to Peter Lorre): "Nice cheerful place - what time do they bring the mummies out?".

Bob Hope: "It always looked so easy in those Tarzan pictures!".

Bob Hope (to Dorothy Lamour): "I don't know how much more of this I can take - you've had me in hot water so long I feel like a tea bag".

Bob Hope could always be relied upon to bring us the laughs with even the most average script but in this film he excels as he is given some great material to work with and certainly makes the most of it. 10/10. Clive Roberts.

"My Favorite Brunette" shows that the parodying of film genres did not start with Mel Brooks or even with the "Carry On" films. Ronnie Jackson is a San Francisco photographer specialising in taking pictures of babies. His great ambition, however, is to be a private detective, and hopes to be taken on as an assistant by Sam McCloud, a private eye whose offices are in the same building as Jackson's studio. McCloud has always resisted, but one day Jackson gets his big chance when he is mistaken for the great man by a potential client. A young woman named Carlotta Montay asks Jackson, whom she believes to be McCloud, to trace her elderly husband who has mysteriously disappeared. Jackson eagerly accepts the assignment.

The rest of the plot does not really matter. (It concerns a battle to control the mining rights to uranium deposits in South America). The whole point of the film is to parody the "film noir" style of film-making, particularly films based on "hardboiled" detective stories like "The Maltese Falcon" or "The Big Sleep". (I am informed that the film to which "My Favorite Brunette" bears the greatest resemblance is "Farewell My Lovely", which I have never seen). The film introduces a selection of stock characters from films of this type- apart from the private eye himself there is the sultry femme fatale (here played by Dorothy Lamour in a move away from her "sarong girl" image), the soft-spoken but sinister foreign villain (played by Peter Lorre, parodying the parts he played in "The Maltese Falcon", "The Man who Knew Too Much" and other films) and the wheelchair-bound old man (like General Sternwood in "The Big Sleep"). There is a typically convoluted noir plot, a gloomy Gothic mansion, a frantic car chase and the sort of cynical, slangy, wisecracking voice-over one could imagine being delivered by Humphrey Bogart. (The house is so big that "you could shoot quail in the hall").

The film's central joke is that, not only is Jackson not a private eye, he is also most unsuited to that particular line of work. He is a character of a sort played by Bob Hope in a number of his other comedies, the man who pretends to be tough, brave and resourceful but who in real life is both cowardly and inept. (In his work as a photographer he even allows himself to be terrorised by a baby).

Seen as a pure comedy, this is not the best, although there are a few amusing gags, such as the lunatic asylum inmates playing golf without a ball, Lon Chaney's musclebound but stupid warder, a joke at the expense of Hope's odd-shaped nose ("I'll personally punch you in the nose so hard it will look like other peoples' noses") and the scene where Hope, trying to record Lorre's confession to a murder, keeps pulling the plug out of the socket. Anyone, however, who is familiar with the conventions of the film noir genre will be amused by this affectionate parody. 6/10.

Bob Hope is back! This time with Dorothy Lamour. This is the ninth film they both have been in and they were in five more together after this one, Bob Hope is the age of 43 or 44 in this film. Bob Hope plays a baby photographer who has always wanted to be a private eye...a detective. Next to his office is the McCloud Detective Agency. He begs for Sam McCloud (Alan Ladd in a cameo appearance) to give him a chance. But nothin' doin'. While McCloud trusts Bob to answer the phone while he steps outside to work on a case, who should walk in but Dorothy Lamour. The distraught woman needs help and thinks Bob is McCloud the detective. Well, what is Bob to do? Especially as lovely as Dorothy Lamour is. So here is Bob's chance to play detective. Here is where the fun begins. Bing Crosby also has a cameo appearance.

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!

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 ****