Visage pâle

Gunslinger and criminal Calamity Jane is released from prison by the Governors in exchange for her help with a problem. Someone is selling guns and dynamite to the Indians and other agents have been killed trying to find out who – only someone like Jane can get close. When her partner is killed she has no-one to act as her husband and help her travel incognito. She happens across a cowardly dentist, Painless Peter Potter, and she marries him in order to get a ride to Buffalo. However, can she keep him out of trouble long enough to find the dynamite?

Bob Hope may be 100 years old as I write this but he has been out of movies for quite a few years, also he only tended to make one type of film and play the same part in each one. So the appeal of this film very much depends on whether or not you like that. Personally I love Bob Hope and enjoy him even when he is in a weak film. The Paleface is one of his best films simply because it is a good piece of all round entertainment. It has a good central plot that stops the film just being a vehicle for him to do his stuff and instead is actually going somewhere.

The songs are quite nice but also there's only really two so it doesn't slow the film down too much. I do like the odd musical number but some Hope films had 5 or more songs in a 90 minute film, which was way too many. Hope is on good form, his asides and jokes work better in a good plot and he is very funny throughout. Some routines work better than others but if you are a fan then you'll like his style even when it isn't as funny as you'd hope. Russell is a good leading lady despite being a bit serious and then softening too quickly. The support cast are all in the background and the Native American clichés can be explained by the period and not racism.

Overall this is a very enjoyable film that works well because it allows Hope to run free within a good film instead of simply letting his performance be the film. He wisecracks his way along and it is easy to see why his light comic style has made him an icon even with a generation who have found him on their television and not the big screen.

*** 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".

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.

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.

The movie, as I recall, was a smash hit, along with the catchy "Buttons and Bows" musical number. It's also one of Hope's best roles. He's Painless Potter, dentist extraordinaire; just don't let him anywhere near your teeth, or anything else, for that matter.

As bumbler-in-chief of about everything, Painless muffs one funny challenge after another, as fashioned (in part) by the imaginative Frank Tashlin. There's also a couple of Bob's gag writers credited, so the one-liners fly as fast as Tashlin's sight gags (for example, the occasional comic strip blurbs cartoonist Tashlin was noted for). At the same time, the complicated plot is just a handy rack for Hope to hang his polished shtick on. And catch that final gag with Bob's breaking character with an aside to the audience that just about sums things up.

But instead of Crosby to pair up with, Bob has the luscious Jane Russell, and while she may not be as funny as Bing, I love it when Painless mistakes an Indian for her on their wedding night. (Note how the screenplay marries them early on, thereby avoiding censorship problems. Note too how her buxom measurements are downplayed, likely a concession to the expected family audiences.)

I don't know if there's a downside since it's a funnyman romp all the way. Maybe, for me, a downside is finding out from IMDb that Iron Eyes Cody, such a great Indian, is not an Indian at all, but was instead born in Italy. Oh well, it's all Hollywood make-believe anyway, so who cares since it's a darn amusing movie, Italian Indians or no.