Wordiezett So much average

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

csteidler Wealthy hypochondriac Bob Hope is visiting a European spa called Bad Gaswasser, taking the waters and hiding out from gold digging widow Gale Sondergaard. Meanwhile, Martha Raye has been dragged to the same locale by her nouveau riche Texan dad, who wants her to marry prince Alan Mowbray, who is broke and seeks a large dowry. Martha, however, has her heart set on hometown pal Andy Devine, who also shows up….The script and the cast are very funny in this fast-paced comedy that barely slows down for a couple of really sweet moments between Hope and Raye (who are both excellent). Among the best moments are an opening sequence showing a scientist in a water processing lab mixing and testing the "natural hot mineral springs" water that Bad Gaswasser promotes; poor Sig Ruman as the hotel manager who can't quite figure out what's going on with guests Hope, Raye and Devine; and Raye, blindfolded, mistaking a friendly bear for Andy Devine ("Why, Henry, how dare you take your shirt off!"). Monty Woolley is hilarious in a bit as a doctor who mistakenly receives a dog's test results instead of Hope's and thinks he's discovered a rare case that will make him famous: "With your acidity," he exclaims, "you can digest bones!" Sondergaard is also wildly funny as the former Olympic sharpshooting champion whose husbands tend to die suddenly. In fact, with this cast of crazies, it's fair (if odd) to say that Hope and Raye essentially play the straight roles in the picture—although both, of course, get in their share of funny moments, too. It's extremely light and it goes by very fast. Good fun.

classicsoncall Bob Hope and Martha Raye continually keep the viewer off balance with regard to their romantic intentions in "Never Say Die", even though they start out by getting married and then go about falling in something like love by the movie's finale. In between, the story ping pongs back and forth between scenes of frustrated would be spouses who don't get their way. Andy Devine takes a wrong turn off the last stagecoach and winds up here as Raye's good old boy from back home who try as he might, never quite seems to get things right between himself and his fiancée. Someone should have thought of slipping him a Mickey.I had to rewind and listen closely a couple of times for a line Hope slid past the censors. When gold digger Juno Marko (Gale Sondergaard) tries to trap John Kidley (Hope) with her matrimonial snare, she alludes to what might have been an indiscreet night of passion. Hope's response - "..., well that was the elevator you see, I just went and I got off, it'll happen." I probably got a kick the most from Kidley's butler Jeepers, played in great understated comic fashion by Ernest Cossart. His deadpan delivery was reminiscent of E.E. Clive's portrayal of Tenny in the Bulldog Drummond franchise.If all the hijinks wasn't enough, the story takes place at a health spa in the Swiss Alps named Bad Gaswasser. You just knew that Hope would get some mileage out of that. Martha Raye's at her frenetic best trying to say good by to her beau Henry Munch (Devine) as she scrambles to catch the honeymoon rendezvous with Kidley. If you pay close enough attention, you might even be able to keep it all straight without benefit of a cross on a muzzle.

sryder@judson-il.edu No masterpiece, but interesting in its own right. Martha Raye, for once, is playing it straight, and not doing the broad comedy/singing routine that was part of her 1930s Paramount films. (She really didn't show this side of her talent again until she had her regular TV variety show in the 1950s. Bob Hope had not yet become the familiar "Bob Hope", wise-cracking and egotistical; rather, here he plays a light comedy romantic lead rather in the British music hall manner. The love scenes between the two are often rather touching in their sincerity. The supporting cast is excellent, especially Gale Sondergaard, the predatory villianness whose shooting skill, which hangs ominously over Hope's head as she forces him into marriage during the entire film, provides the deus ex machina to resolve the romantic plot in a surprise turnabout. The fact that all other roles are played so broadly helps highlight the relatively subdued Raye and Hope performances. In fact, there are several surprises along the way, including the fact that boy and girl marry at about a third of the way through the movie; then fall in love. Very enjoyable.

Varlaam This supposedly light-hearted romp through Switzerland seems more like spending the weekend at Berchtesgaden with Adolf and Eva.This is quite a surprise when you consider that the script was co-authored by Preston Sturges, and that the cast includes Bob Hope and Andy Devine. I only have to imagine Andy saying "Wild Bill" in that puberty-stricken voice of his, and I laugh. Unfortunately, this is not the old Wild Bill Hickok show.The next Preston Sturges project to misfire as badly as this one would probably be The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend in 1949, with all of those masterpieces still to come lying in between.The film has one interesting sequence, the duel scene, which contains this dialogue: "There's a cross on the muzzle of the pistol with the bullet and a nick on the handle of the pistol with the blank." When you hear this in the movie, said with the proper rhythm, you will recognize it immediately as the "chalice from the palace has the brew that is true" bit in "The Court Jester" with Danny Kaye from 1956. I suppose Melvin Frank and Norman Panama knew a good idea when they heard one and helped themselves. Or do both scenes derive from an even older vaudeville routine?