Si j'épousais ma femme

Struggling cartoonist Francis X. Dignan (Bob Hope) is three times unlucky in marriage. His ex-wife Dunreath Henry (Eva Marie Saint) is secretary to successful cartoonist Larry Larkin (George Sanders) and soon to be his wife. Larry's cartoon is losing popularity and pulled from some newspapers. Dunreath suggests getting Dignan to help bring Larry's strip back to life.

I really like the story or at least the idea of the premise. I like the relationship with the kid. This could work, but one thing keeps bothering me. Bob Hope is too old. In real life, he is 21 years older than Eva. This is more problematic than the standard Hollywood two decades difference. It doesn't make sense for the story. They are supposed to be old friends from their home town. She has a childhood crush on him. He probably left town when he was twenty. If the ages hold, she would be just born when he left town. The characters need to be ten years different at the very most. Five would be better. In fact, Bob is older than George Sanders in real life. Larry should be much older than Francis and that's why he's out of touch. Bob is simply too old for this role.

This well-acted mid-nineteen fifties comedy with its star-studded cast is engaging and full of funny lines and situations. In the case of Pearl Bailey, still looking young, slim and attractive in her late thirties, it is also well sung. Her humorous asides to Eva Marie Saint's character ("Are you all right, Honey?") as she serenades Dignan (Bob Hope) and Dunreith after dinner, in the role of their maid, Gussie, are very amusing. The song she sings is "Zing! went the strings of my heart." A very young Jerry Mathers will tug at your heartstrings as a little boy being adopted by a famous cartoonist. George Sanders acted the part of the self-deceiving and self-promoting cartoonist Larry Larkin to the limit and beyond, but it all comes together in this light-hearted and entertaining movie. One memorable scene has Bob Hope, with a ukulele and straw hat, sitting in a canoe on a very long sofa, preparing to sing the title tune. If you missed the film when it came out, it's well worth a look, fifty years later.

The cartoonist for the daily comic Snips and Runty is getting too stuffy, so his secretary/fiancée recommends another animator to "ghost write" the strip and bring back its heart--her first husband. Take a Broadway play, "The King of Hearts", from two playwrights (Jean Kerr and Eleanor Brooke) and adapt it for the movies using four screenwriters (William Altman, I. A. L. Diamond, Melvin Frank and Norman Panama), two producers (Frank and Panama) and two directors (the same) and you get this absolute piece of piffle. Bob Hope trades limp quips with ex Eva Marie Saint--and even worse ones with his psychiatrist, who shrugs off an overdue bill for $400. Better than the central action are the trimmings: Pearl Bailey as a singing maid and Jerry Mathers as an adopted child; however, George Sanders, giving an uncharacteristic lemme-outta-here performance, is like an anchor on these treacly proceedings. * from ****

Bob Hope has never been milder than in his portrayal of a hypochondriacal cartoonist--he makes Jack Lemmon look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Over 50, he's a bit embarrassing as a nervous failure and a contender to reclaim his ex-wife. But, surprisingly, he takes the acting honors--Eva Marie Saint looks and acts like a prim librarian's boring sister and George Sanders's suave personality doesn't fit the gauche and corny lines he is given. However, he does have (I think) the best line in the movie, one that in ordinary circumstances would have been given to Hope: "If I weren't in makeup I'd strike you." It was Hope who, in real life, responded to a heckler with "You wouldn't dare say that if I had my writers with me."

The boy actor who the following year played the name part in Leave it to Beaver is an orphan who, again untypically, shows Hope to be a splendid father figure. He is bearable. But no child deserves the really nasty way that Sanders talks to him, a disturbing note in what is supposed to be a comedy.

A few musical numbers are very extraneous but they certainly liven things up--Pearl Bailey purring a couple of songs and Hope and Saint cutting loose with the title tune. The shabbiness of the material, however, is clear when she says that, back in their hometown, she admired him in the high-school play. She wouldn't have been born yet.

Doesn't pull any weight - despite 3 strong actors as leads - till the last third of the movie.

At this point, we are treated to some humour at last . . . And connectivity between the characters. Eva Marie Saint does a surprising scene of a comic drunk song dance, with Bob Hope. As if she finally felt at home in the role, Saint suddenly springs to life and is at last believable in the film. And the viewer finally gets to see the chemistry between the characters of the ex-wife & ex-husband.

Up till that point Saint had looked like she was doing the old trope of an aloof ash-blonde clothes horse. Maybe she was told to by the production team, so no shame on her as an actress, but you just couldn't see within the film plot how two such opposing character types as she & Hope had ever had enough connecting them to get married. Now, finaly, we could.

I must say, I have only ever seen Saint in two other roles that I remember ('Waterfront' & 'Northwest'), where she also does the Grace Kelly/Tippi Hedren thing of largely just posing on set as an ice princess. Seeing this 'TSW' film now makes me realise that Saint had hidden talents that were probably never really tested on screen. The great costumier Edith Head's outfits are, as ever, gorgeous. But they basically hide the character in Saint that we should have been shown. Being beautiful could be a huge burden to an actress & entertainer back in the '50s . . . !

Poor George Sanders is somewhat typecast as a pompous Britisher {as the Americans DO seem to love naming us! ,-) }. Sadly he is plagued by a ridiculously over-convoluted way of speaking. This is clearly deliberate: his character's annoyingly verbose and self-centred style. But when you put it in at the start of the film, with the mix of Hope & Saint failing to set the screen alight for an hour, it just produces a dirge of scenes for most of the film.

Bob Hope has some superb lines, right from the start and throughout the film. He delivers them with typical aplomb, and with the usual brilliant comic effect. This at least makes HIS input create a watchable movie. So there is no falting that character or the scriptwriters' skilled involvement - thus far - in the final movie. But he seems to be sailing alone in this vessel. I was honestly thinking this was the worst film I had ever seen Hope in, till all changed . . .

As fortunately, one hour in, the chemistry between the 3 players changes. At last, we see a comedy movie worth its salt. So in the end the film was rated a 7/10 rather than a 5 or 6. Shame it didn't show any of the 'zing' Pearl Bailey references in the movie, earlier on. Now that WOULD have been a complete winner of a film.