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The Paleface

Blu ray

Kino Lorber

1948 / 91 min.

Starring Bob Hope, Jane Russell

Cinematography by Ray Rennahan

Directed by Norman Z. McLeod

In 1934 Al Christie directed Going Spanish, a 19 minute farce billed as “An Educational Musical Comedy.” The movie is notable only for the film debut of Bob Hope whose wisecracks about the movie’s incompetence provoked Christie to cancel the comedian’s contract. Another filmmaker made his mark with the irascible producer too—Norman Z. McLeod got his feet wet working as title cartoonist for a series of silent films known as Christie’s Comedies. Pretty soon McLeod would be dealing with funny men in the flesh; W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, Danny Kaye and Hope himself. He would direct—and with those particular artists, “manage” might be a more appropriate term—some of the greatest comedies to emerge from the studio system.

McLeod’s technique, a hands-off approach that was the opposite of showy,...

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“Bob Hope’S 10 Gallon Hats”

By Raymond Benson

Sometimes a little Bob Hope goes a long way. There’s no denying that Hope was one of the more popular comic stars of the 1940s and 50s. His star began to wane in the 60s, and then most of the Baby Boomer generation knew him as perhaps the greatest host that the Academy Awards ceremony ever had.

During Hope’s most active years, he made many solo pictures that were truly funny. He was also established as Bing Crosby’s partner in the massively successful “Road to…” movies, which arguably launched Hope’s career as a leading or co-leading man in 1940. When the scripts and direction were good, then Hope’s solo films were superb. That was not always the case.

The Paleface (1948) was co-written by Frank Tashlin (with Edmund Hartmann), who would also...

Helping you stay sane while staying safe… featuring Leonard Maltin, Dave Anthony, Miguel Arteta, John Landis, and Blaire Bercy from the Hollywood Food Coalition.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Plague (1979)

Target Earth (1954)

The Left Hand of God (1955)

A Lost Lady (1934)

Enough Said (2013)

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939)

Heaven Can Wait (1978)

Down to Earth (2001)

Down To Earth (1947)

The Commitments (1991)

Once (2007)

Election (1999)

About Schmidt (2002)

Sideways (2004)

Nebraska (2013)

The Man in the Moon (1991)

The 39 Steps (1935)

Casablanca (1942)

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

The Night Walker (1964)

Chuck and Buck (2000)

Cedar Rapids (2011)

Beatriz at Dinner (2017)

Duck Butter (2018)

The Good Girl (2002)

The Big Heat (1953)

Human Desire (1954)

Slightly French (1949)

Week-End with Father (1951)

Experiment In Terror (1962)

They Shoot Horses Don’t They? (1969)

Ray’s Male Heterosexual Dance Hall (1987)

Airport (1970)

Earthquake (1974)

Drive a Crooked Road (1954)

Pushover (1954)

Waves (2019)

Krisha (2015)

The Oblong Box (1969)

80,000 Suspects (1963)

Panic In The Streets (1950)

It Comes At Night (2017)

Children of Men (2006)

The Road (2009)

You Were Never Really Here...

The Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame will be induct William J. Creber – the production designer responsible for, among other achievements, the Statue of Liberty scene in the original Planet of the Apes – and frequent Cecil B. DeMille collaborator Roland Anderson into its ranks at the 24th Annual Art Directors Guild’s Excellence in Production Design Awards next month.

The announcement was made today by President Nelson Coates, Adg and Awards Producer Scott Moses, Adg. The 2020 Awards will be held Saturday, February 1, at the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown.

Creber, who died last year, is best known for his work on the Irwin Allen disaster movies The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno as well as the first three Planet of the Apes movies. He was Oscar-nominated three times, for The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974). He was Emmy-nominated for his work on ABC’s...

This article marks Part 5 of the Gold Derby series analyzing 84 years of Best Original Song at the Oscars. Join us as we look back at the timeless tunes recognized in this category, the results of each race and the overall rankings of the Academy Awards winners.

The 1950 Oscar nominees in Best Original Song were:

“Mona Lisa” from “Captain Carey, U.S.A.”

“Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” from “Cinderella”

“Mule Train” from “Singing Guns”

“Be My Love” from “The Toast of New Orleans”

“Wilhelmina” from “Wabash Avenue”

Won and should’ve won: “Mona Lisa” from “Captain Carey, U.S.A. ”

Best Original Song in 1950 underwhelms a bit, with really only two particularly memorable nominees – one, the winning “Mona Lisa,” and second, the catchy-as-can-be “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo.”

“Mona Lisa,” featured in the forgettable Alan Ladd war picture “Captain Carey, U.S.A.,” is performed sumptuously here by the always-marvelous Nat King Cole. His performance, coupled with the rich orchestrations,...

You pick up a lot of baggage when you live to be 100, a sentiment confirmed by the long, long movie career of Bob Hope. His unofficial status as the preeminent entertainer of the 20th century is open to debate but he was without a doubt that era’s most conspicuous comedian. Marlon Brando’s infamous dismissal, “He’ll go to the opening of a market to receive an award”, was mean-spirited but it had the sting of truth; for over eighty years Hope was everywhere, for better or worse.

Living up to his nickname, “Rapid Robert”, the 31-year old Hope shot out of the gate in 1934 with a series of quick-on-their feet comic shorts revolving around his unique presence as a leading man and comical sidekick rolled into one. It wasn’t long before he was starring in pleasantly prosaic musicals like The Big Broadcast of 1938 and handsomely mounted...

He's been all but forgotten, but the Lff's restrospective should spur new interest in the singing cowboy and his palomino, Trigger

It's as if Roy Rogers never existed. The "singing cowboy" has almost entirely disappeared from our screens. The only time you're likely to catch a glimpse of him is when Bob Hope movie Son of Paleface turns up on television – it features Rogers gently sending himself up, as well as his beautiful palomino Trigger, surely the most good-looking horse in the history of westerns, performing a dance.

Rogers (whose real name was Leonard Slye) made more than 80 films. Early in his career, he was one of the original Sons of the Pioneers, the cowboy singing group whose songs included Tumbling Tumbleweeds (featured in The Big Lebowski) and Cool Water. He had his own radio show, his own TV show and there was even a restaurant chain bearing his name.

David Thomson salutes the work of Jane Russell, star of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, who has died age 89

For decades, wherever she went, Jane Russell was the subject of dirty jokes. She knew this in advance, and she continued to meet fate and fortune with good humour and the kind of sassy grin that keeps hope alive in the guys who tell the smutty stories. But she must have known how in Hollywood innuendo can kill you as easily as the official diseases. After all, Russell had worked with one of the great victims of the dirty joke. In Howard Hawks's gorgeous and very witty Gentlemen Prefer Blondes she had done immaculate routines with Marilyn Monroe.

You can still feel Jane's sisterly care for Marilyn on screen, and Gentlemen was one of Marilyn's happier outings. Russell had opportunities to see how Marilyn might get to be a wreck one day,...

Voluptuous star of The Outlaw and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

The actor Jane Russell, who has died aged 89, was among the most desired women of the 20th century. She had great erotic force and great likability. Russell made just over 20 films, but only a handful of those are remembered: her first film, The Outlaw (1943); the comedy western The Paleface (1948), with Bob Hope; and the musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), co-starring Marilyn Monroe.

The Outlaw, produced by Howard Hughes, was famously promoted with a series of publicity stills showing Russell lying in the hay, and bending down to pick up bales. The experience made her savvy about the vulgarity of the film industry. Her breasts were less covered and more fetishised, lit, photographed, designed and dreamed about than any woman's in the cinema had been until that time. Hughes even designed a special bra for her to wear in the film (although she...

Alright my little right clickers and ctrl-t partiers, by now you've noticed that the links no longer open in a new tab. This is a regrettable and irrevocable internal workings decision. But think of it this way, you're not losing new tabs, you're gaining pagination! The overlords giveth, and they taketh away, my dears. In order to atone, I've not only handcrafted a supersized P. Love for you today, but also made you a bonus present. Because I love you so much, I dusted off my hazmat suit and hip waders and slogged through the muck and mire of crazy that is Charlie Sheen's thoughts. Here's a word cloud, my prurient pretties, of his most recent brain spew which will, if you click on it, open full-size in another window. Lest you miss the beauty of the fine print. "Radical Magic Turd" indeed.

Speaking of fine print, did you...

Her sensational, provocative debut in Howard Hughes’ ‘The Outlaw’ scandalized 1940s America, breaking barriers on censorship and revolutionizing the movies forever. She then became the most famous bra spokeswoman in the world!

Jane Russell, the buxom beauty who shot to stardom with her stunning cleavage-baring debut in Howard Hughes’ The Outlaw, has died at age 89. She was the bodacious Hollywood star who paved the way for the buxom beauties who followed, from Marilyn Monroe to Beyonce!

The now-iconic poster for her first movie, made after Jane was just discovered working in a doctor’s office at just 19, featured the young Minnesota-born actress in a revealing blouse that bared one shoulder — and made film censors queasy. Legend has it that Hughes designed a specially engineered bra for her 38-d breasts. But Jane always said she never wore the contraption!

After The Outlaw, Jane, who made her mark by poking fun at...

Not many actresses had enough raw charisma to share the screen with Marilyn Monroe without getting upstaged, but Jane Russell could. Russell, who died Monday at the age of 89 of respiratory-related illness, was a rare Hollywood commodity: an actress who combined raw sexual magnetism with a razor-sharp wit. She was beautiful and sexy and smart and funny, the total package. And man, what a package.

Russell gave the world two gifts for which we will be forever grateful: the musical comedy "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" with Monroe, and a figure so voluptuous it inspired filmmaker, aviator, and voluptuousness hobbyist Howard Hughes to invent one of the first underwire brassieres. As the legend goes, Russell served as Hughes' bra muse during production of his film "The Outlaw" in 1941. The 19-year-old actress had been plucked from obscurity working in a doctor's office when Hughes cast her for her curvaceous body and smoldering onscreen presence.

We look back at Jane Russell's movie career, from The Outlaw through Gentlemen Prefer Blondes to her late-60s cameos

As a 20-year-old and the object of Howard Hughes's attentions, Jane Russell was force-fed into a series of low-cut dresses for The Outlaw (1943).

She plays Doc Holliday's girl Rio, who falls in love with a wounded Billy the Kid when he hides out with her, on the run from Pat Garrett. Not remotely historically accurate, this blood-heat western is best remembered for the censorship squabbles over exactly how far Russell was allowed to lean over while tenderly ministering to the Kid. Hughes's legendary underwired cantilevered brassiere was designed during the shooting of the film, but Russell denied she ever wore it.

The Paleface (1948) was a real change of pace: a comedy western with Bob Hope as the useless dentist Peter Potter, who plays husband to Russell's deep-cover Calamity Jane.

Actress Jane Russell died earlier today of respiratory failure in her Santa Maria home at the age of 89.  As the legend goes, film mogul Howard Hughes was taken aback by Russell's 38-inch bust and promptly cast her in The Outlaw.  The film was shot in 1941 and never missed an opportunity to spotlight Ms. Russell's voluptuous figure, a stylistic choice that troubled the censors and kept the film from a wide release until 1946.  (At which point The Outlaw was a smash hit.) But Russell was more than the sum of her breasts.  Her relatively brief career is noted for commanding performances in The Paleface, His Kind of Woman, Macao, and most notably Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.  It is best to present Ms. Russell in motion, in Technicolor; so hit the jump for musical highlights from her career. "Ain't There Anyone Here for Love" - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes "Buttons and Bows" - Son of Paleface...

Christie's, the New York Auctioneers have placed cowboy singer/actor Roy Roger's famous stuffed horse 'Trigger' up for sale.

The golden palamino, originally named 'Golden Cloud', was foaled July 4, 1934 on a ranch co-owned by Bing Crosby. In 1937, the horse, standing 15 hands high and registered with the Palomino Horse Association and Stud Book Registry, was sold to Hudkins Stables, a Hollywood provider of animals.

Golden Cloud's early acting resume included playing the horse of 'Maid Marian' in the 1938 feature "The Adventures of Robin Hood" with actress Olivia de Havilland famously riding Golden Cloud side saddle.

Casting horses For the film "Under Western Stars", star Roy Rogers fell in love with Golden Cloud and purchased the palomino for $2,500.

"He would turn on a dime and give you 9 cents change", said Rogers at the time, re-naming the horse 'Trigger', as he was "quick on the trigger".

Rogers never used reins,...