Plantiana Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Wordiezett So much average

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

weezeralfalfa Finally, a film were there's no Bing Crosby to steal Dorothy Lamour from Bob Hope in the last segment, as was the usual case in the famous "Road" series. Even in "The Princess and the Pauper", where Virginia Mayo substituted for Dorothy in a raucous farce, Bing showed up at the end to steal the fair damsel away from Hope. David Butler directed that film, as well as the present one. Bing's substitutes in this film: Eddie Bracken and Lynne Overman, were no substitute for the presence of Der Bingle as a foil for Hope, as well as a little singing and dancing. Hope's obstacles to marrying Dorothy included his own cowardice and incompetence, his persistent trickery, and the opposition of Dorothy's father, Colonel Fairbanks, unless he could qualify to be at least a corporal and show evidence of adequate bravery. During his basic training , he lived in fear that Col. Fairbanks would make good his threat to transfer him to another base, if he didn't stop pestering Dorothy, and start showing some competence as a potential soldier.Hope has frequent access to the Colonel's residence during his training, where Dorothy is also residing. We certainly have to wonder how he managed that, and why Dorothy put up with his repetitive bumbling and trickery to chose him as a potential husband. Must be that he is a famous movie actor when not in the army, despite his various phobias and clumsiness.In the beginning, the two things Hope most feared were being drafted and being suckered into a marriage to hopefully avoid being drafted. "That's like cutting your throat to cure laryngitis". Dorothy seemed to be an exception to his fear. Thus, he aggressively pursued marriage to her to hopefully avoid the draft. As you might expect, he ended up married, and in the army, as an involuntary volunteer, we might say.The film begins with Hope, among others, mired in a very muddy trench in WWI. This turns out to be a film shoot. Strangely, Hope is rattled by loud noises, even from a pistol shot, and faints at the sight of his blood. His first meeting with Dorothy and her father, on the movie set, is a disaster, as he mistakes her father for one of the actors, and sprays him with mud. Next, he lands in a gooey mud pit, totally immersed except for his eyes, exclaiming "Mami!", as if he was in blackface.Most of you will probably consider the segment where Hope has to drive a tank the most hilarious. Narrowly missing various disasters, he ends up grazing the side of the Colonel's car, knocking the door off its hinges, after having picked up a pretty nurse along the way... Hope fails miserably as a paratrooper and on the target range....Then, there's the segment where Hope is hiding and being chased around the base hospital. The last segment has Hope and buddies participating in a war game. They become heroes in averting a disaster, are promoted to corporal, and Hope is judged now to be fit to marry Dorothy.Unlike the "Road" series, there is no singing or dancing. Thus, this film totally relies on one liners and physical comedy for its interest Hope and Dorothy made another film during the war without Bing: "They Got Me Covered": a combination comedy and spy thriller, relating to the war. I haven't seen it.

csteidler Movie star Bob Hope is sensitive to loud noises—when shooting a war movie scene he expects the director to stage the battle silently and then put in the shooting sounds later. And so talk of the impending military draft soon has Bob and his agents Eddie Bracken and Lynne Overton discussing…marriage? Yes—avoiding the draft seems highly desirable, and a marriage deferment seems a likely strategy. Alas, having fallen for a colonel's daughter, a best-laid scheme to fake his enlistment goes awry and he finds himself a private after all. The bulk of the picture follows Hope's efforts to adapt to army life—and his continuing efforts to woo the girl he had originally hoped to marry as a means to deferment. Dorothy Lamour is quite lovely as the object of Hope's attentions; she's easy to root for as she tries to balance her affection for Bob with her loyalty to her military father, who understandably thinks Hope is an idiot. Clarence Kolb is excellent as the colonel—crusty and acerbic, he nevertheless displays love and grudging patience as well. Eddie Bracken is super as always as the buddy; Lynne Overman is good, too, as the agent who never quite forgets that Hope's safety is his own livelihood. There's plenty of typical Hope humor—"Of course I'm not a coward. I'm just allergic to bullets"—mixed in with doses of real patriotism from Dorothy: "How do you know? You can be scared and still be a hero. You know, some of the bravest men have been scared to death going over the top. But they kept on going."It would be a rare Hope movie without at least one winking reference signaling to the audience that we all know it's just a movie; here it's his comment when first glimpsing Lamour through a window: "Mmm, that's a bundle. She looks like Dorothy Lamour with clothes on."No, it's not as riotously funny as Buck Privates or as wisecrack-packed as My Favorite Brunette, but it's nevertheless a very pleasant and solid little picture.

Robert J. Maxwell For Bob Hope, in the 1940s, this is pretty routine stuff. Hope pretends to enlist in order to impress his girl friend, Dorothy Lamour, and winds up in the army by mistake. I don't know why this isn't funnier than it is. It has a cast of seasoned comedy actors, of which Lynn Overman is the best, with his dry Edgar-Buchanan wisecracks. The problem is with the script. It has a ground-out quality. Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, Mickey Rooney -- everyone seemed to be making the same movie, and this role could have been handed over to anyone. Hope is an extremely funny guy in the right context but this isn't the context. The script is unimaginative. The direction by David Butler is leaden. There are long pauses after a gag, before the dissolve, while the audience is supposed to be laughing. It seems at times that eons come and go, dynasties rise and fall, geological epochs pass, while we wait for the dissolve to the next scene in a silent room. Hope was a lot better later on, especially in the Road movies with Bing Crosby to play off. And he would be much better by himself too, in such outings as "My Favorite Spy." This one is worth watching and at times is engaging fun, but, for Hope, strictly by the book.

GoonerAl Although very well written, I think the previous review of this relatively early Bob Hope picture is a little harsh. Perhaps it is written from a professional viewpoint.As an ordinary punter that happens to be a Bob Hope fan, there are more than enough good quips and comical situations here to keep me chuckling throughout.I would class this as a picture that is simply meant to be enjoyed, rather than dissected and analysed in intimate detail. In fact, good "old-fashioned" entertainment that will provide more than a fair share of laughs on a winter's afternoon.