User reviews

The 1940's was a very prolific period for Bob Hope as he made 21 movies during that decade including some of his very best (the "Road" films of course with Crosby and Lamour, "The Paleface" with Jane Russell, and "My Favorite Blonde" with Madeleine Carroll). However, "Brunette" rates as high, if not higher, than any of these as it had a very funny script and a wonderful supporting cast including Peter Lorre, Lon Chaney Jnr, John Hoyt, Ann Doran, Reginald Denny, Ray Teal, Jack La Rue and a couple of surprise star cameos. Peter Lorre in particular seemed to enjoy sending up his usual image as a sinister killer.

San Francisco baby photographer Ronnie Jackson (Bob Hope) has unfulfilled ambitions to be a private detective like his neighbour in the next office Sam McCloud. When Sam goes out of town Carlotta Montay (Dorothy Lamour) comes in seeking help and mistakes Hope for the detective who thinks this could be the big chance to prove himself but as usual in a Hope film he runs into more trouble than he can handle. Lamour persuades Hope to look for her uncle who has been kidnapped by the villains and a double put in his place. The plot thickens as he accompanies Lamour into many ludicrous situations, unforeseen danger and one hilarious episode after another.

Some favourite lines from the film:

Bob Hope: "You see, I wanted to be a detective too. It only took brains, courage and a gun - and I had the gun!".

Bob Hope: "I was cut out for this kind of life. All my life I've wanted to be a hard boiled detective like Humphrey Bogart, or Dick Powell ... or even Alan Ladd!".

Bob Hope (to Peter Lorre): "Nice cheerful place - what time do they bring the mummies out?".

Bob Hope: "It always looked so easy in those Tarzan pictures!".

Bob Hope (to Dorothy Lamour): "I don't know how much more of this I can take - you've had me in hot water so long I feel like a tea bag".

Bob Hope could always be relied upon to bring us the laughs with even the most average script but in this film he excels as he is given some great material to work with and certainly makes the most of it. 10/10. Clive Roberts.

This was one of the three films that Bob Hope did for Paramount with the theme of favorites: blonde, spy and brunette. He was at one of the best moments of his career when this spoof about the detective movie genre went into production.

"My Favorite Brunette" was directed by Elliott Nugent with a style that made it fun and light to watch. The screen play by Edmund Beloin and Jack Rose parodies those films that showed a charismatic private eye get into all kinds of dangerous situations. In this film, Ronnie Jackson, a photographer in San Francisco is suddenly, thrown into a web of intrigue when he steps into the office of his neighbor, the real P.I, Sam McCloud, who is fed up with the job and is leaving town.

Enter the femme fatale, something that is a must in this type of film, Carlotta Montay. She will get Ronnie into all kinds of difficult situations and even the gas chamber as he tries his best to deal with all the bad people that are chasing Carlotta.

Bob Hope was excellent in his take of Ronnie Jackson. Dorothy Lamour, in all her beauty, made the most of her Carlotta. Two cameos in the film were notorious because they are uncredited and unexpected: Alan Ladd, and Bing Crosby. Others in the film are Peter Lorre, Lon Chaney Jr., Charles Dingle, Frank Puglia, Reginald Denny, among the supporting cast.

The film is still a lot of fun as it makes fun of other more dramatic movies thanks to the direction of Elliott Nugent.

The film concerns Ronnie Jackson (Bob Hope) a quite shy baby photographer gets mistaken with his next door neighbour Sam McCloud (Alan Ladd) , a famous San Francisco private eye . The problems start when the Baroness Carlotta Montay (Dorothy Lamour) contracts Ronnie to find her husband (Frank Puglia) and investigate about a map what marks the location of a Criolita (uranium) deposit that would be the key for defense of free world . It will lead him by the way to an international intrigue . Meanwhile , Ronnie to confront a villain Major (Charles Dingle) and his heavies (henchmen: Peter Lorre, Lon Chaney Jr. ,John Hoyt) .

The picture results to be a hilarious spy caper with lots of fun , giggles , laughs , tongue-in cheek and a little bit of action and suspense . The movie is the following to¨My favorite blonde¨(by Sidney Lanfield) who starred Hope and Madeleine Carroll as his partenaire. There appears some cameos and guest appearances of famed stars , such as Alan Ladd as the typical tough detective and Bing Crosby in a likable final interpretation . Bing Crosby along with Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour formed a famous trio with too much success and they starred numerous films with titles as ¨Road to..Bali , Road to ..Morocco,.. Zanzibar , ...Hong Kong¨, among others . Besides , appearing as a secondary actor the terror expert Lon Chaney Jr. , repeating his role of the simple-minded person in the film adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel :¨Mice and men¨(1939) , Chaney's performance as an innocent burly man is spectacularly touching and amusing . In addition , Peter Lorre , as always , plays an astute villainous and with skills for throwing deadly daggers . The motion picture was well directed by Eliott Nugent . The flick will appeal to Bob Hope fans .

This movie offers an abundance of laughs with Hope as a baby photographer turned detective who is clearly out of his element. Dorothy Lamour is sexy and funny as Bobs love interest. Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney Jr. add the sinister part to the movie and are good straight men for Hopes antics. This type of comedy was popular in the 40's but few could pull it off as well as Hope could. He is, in my opinion, better without a partner such as Bing to bring in the laughs. It is a fun picture to watch.

Hi, Everyone, As this movie begins, count the stars in the Paramount logo. You will see there are 24. That means it is an old Paramount Picture. Paramount's new logo has only 22 stars. I am not sure when that was changed but certainly by the mid fifties.

Interestingly, this movie has a speaking part for an African American man and an Asian American woman in the first five minutes of the film. Neither gets screen credit. There is also a child actor who chews up the scenery, that scenery being Bob Hope's finger.

It is nice to see Bob Hope actually climbing a tree. Bob was in excellent physical shape in those days of the 1940s. If you want to watch him dancing watch The Seven Little Foys where he tap dances with Jimmy Cagney during the mid 1950s.

It is fun for those of us who remember dictaphones and wire recorders and disc recorders that made big 78 rpm records as we watch Bob trying to operate a recorder. Where were the digital MP3 recorders when you needed one in 1947? The cars are fun to look at. This is like a trip to a museum with an old friend.

One scene I ran back and forth a few times and I have not yet figured out how they did it. There is a scene where Bob is the target for a knife thrower. I think they really threw the knives and barely missed his head. It looks real to me.

Not Bob's best movie, but worth a look. I recommend Paleface, Fancy Pants, Son of Paleface, Seven Little Foys, Beau James and That Certain Feeling.

Tom Willett

"My Favorite Brunette" shows that the parodying of film genres did not start with Mel Brooks or even with the "Carry On" films. Ronnie Jackson is a San Francisco photographer specialising in taking pictures of babies. His great ambition, however, is to be a private detective, and hopes to be taken on as an assistant by Sam McCloud, a private eye whose offices are in the same building as Jackson's studio. McCloud has always resisted, but one day Jackson gets his big chance when he is mistaken for the great man by a potential client. A young woman named Carlotta Montay asks Jackson, whom she believes to be McCloud, to trace her elderly husband who has mysteriously disappeared. Jackson eagerly accepts the assignment.

The rest of the plot does not really matter. (It concerns a battle to control the mining rights to uranium deposits in South America). The whole point of the film is to parody the "film noir" style of film-making, particularly films based on "hardboiled" detective stories like "The Maltese Falcon" or "The Big Sleep". (I am informed that the film to which "My Favorite Brunette" bears the greatest resemblance is "Farewell My Lovely", which I have never seen). The film introduces a selection of stock characters from films of this type- apart from the private eye himself there is the sultry femme fatale (here played by Dorothy Lamour in a move away from her "sarong girl" image), the soft-spoken but sinister foreign villain (played by Peter Lorre, parodying the parts he played in "The Maltese Falcon", "The Man who Knew Too Much" and other films) and the wheelchair-bound old man (like General Sternwood in "The Big Sleep"). There is a typically convoluted noir plot, a gloomy Gothic mansion, a frantic car chase and the sort of cynical, slangy, wisecracking voice-over one could imagine being delivered by Humphrey Bogart. (The house is so big that "you could shoot quail in the hall").

The film's central joke is that, not only is Jackson not a private eye, he is also most unsuited to that particular line of work. He is a character of a sort played by Bob Hope in a number of his other comedies, the man who pretends to be tough, brave and resourceful but who in real life is both cowardly and inept. (In his work as a photographer he even allows himself to be terrorised by a baby).

Seen as a pure comedy, this is not the best, although there are a few amusing gags, such as the lunatic asylum inmates playing golf without a ball, Lon Chaney's musclebound but stupid warder, a joke at the expense of Hope's odd-shaped nose ("I'll personally punch you in the nose so hard it will look like other peoples' noses") and the scene where Hope, trying to record Lorre's confession to a murder, keeps pulling the plug out of the socket. Anyone, however, who is familiar with the conventions of the film noir genre will be amused by this affectionate parody. 6/10.

When baby photographer Ronnie Jackson (Bob Hope) office-sits for traveling p.i. Sam McCloud, he finds his dreams of playing detective coming all too true all too soon when mysterious damsel-in-distress Carlotta Montay (Dorothy Lamour) sashays into his office. Soon our hero is up to his ski-nose in trouble as he and his comely client are chased by a gang of cutthroats with designs on Carlotta's uncle's uranium (that's right, uranium!). One of Hope's best comedies, BRUNETTE deftly spoofs hard-boiled private eye thrillers of the era with a barrage of uproarious one-liners and set pieces. Hope and Lamour's usual comic/romantic chemistry is at its finest amid a nifty supporting cast including Peter Lorre, the unfairly uncredited Jean Wong (a delight as Mrs. Fong, mother of a tot so loathe to smile that Ronnie quips, "This kid's gonna grow up to be a sponsor!"), Lon Chaney Jr. (essentially playing his classic and oft-imitated OF MICE AND MEN role for laughs), and a couple of cameos too hilarious to spoil here (including the Paramount tough guy who appears as McCloud)! The DVD currently available doesn't have the most pristine print, but it's got some fun interactive features, including a trivia quiz. I only hope somebody decides to give this cheeky, cheerful farce the Criterion-caliber treatment it deserves! UPDATE for 2011: There's a remastered Bob Hope DVD collection available from The Shout Factory, including a gorgeous print of MY FAVORITE BRUNETTE, complete with Paramount logo! HOORAY!

Bob Hope in one of his better comedies of the 1940s, a clever satire of noir mysteries (Raymond Chandler, in particular) which substitutes hard-boiled for soft-boiled without losing the essence of a good crime story. A baby-photographer in San Francisco is found in the neighboring offices of a vacationing private detective by a femme fatale, who unwittingly hires the would-be gumshoe to help find her missing uncle. Edmund Beloin and Jack Rose penned the dandy original screenplay, neatly skirting the spoofy/silly undercurrent which marred many of Hope's starring vehicles of the era. Dorothy Lamour (with the wonderful character name Carlotta Montay) is the supposedly schizophrenic and paranoid client; Peter Lorre is her evil valet; and nobody cracks walnuts like muscle-stooge Lon Chaney. Fresh and witty, with a surprising hint of sex appeal, a solid production, and two terrific star-cameos as a bonus. *** from ****

Baby photographer Bob Hope (as Ronnie Jackson) is on death row, for a murder he didn't commit. While preparing for his stint in the (laughing) gas chamber, Mr. Hope tells his story, in flashback… Hope isn't happy taking baby pictures. His real desire is to become a successful a private detective, like "Sam Spade" or "Philip Marlowe". To wit, Hope is hired by beautiful Baroness Dorothy Lamour (as Carlotta Montay), to solve the mystery of her missing husband/uncle…

Medium done Hope is better than most, not as good as some. The material is a bit lame, but Hope handles it expertly. Peter Lorre (as Kismet) and Lon Chaney Jr. (as Willie) lead a fine supporting cast. The frequent co-starred Ms. Lamour is a perfectly subtle spoof counterpoint to Hope's wisecracking coward. Alan Ladd and Bing Crosby bookend the film with two highly entertaining "cameo" appearances. The stuffing in-between gets a little too long and thin, at times.

***** My Favorite Brunette (3/19/47) Elliott Nugent ~ Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Peter Lorre, Lon Chaney Jr.

Bob Hope is back! This time with Dorothy Lamour. This is the ninth film they both have been in and they were in five more together after this one, Bob Hope is the age of 43 or 44 in this film. Bob Hope plays a baby photographer who has always wanted to be a private eye...a detective. Next to his office is the McCloud Detective Agency. He begs for Sam McCloud (Alan Ladd in a cameo appearance) to give him a chance. But nothin' doin'. While McCloud trusts Bob to answer the phone while he steps outside to work on a case, who should walk in but Dorothy Lamour. The distraught woman needs help and thinks Bob is McCloud the detective. Well, what is Bob to do? Especially as lovely as Dorothy Lamour is. So here is Bob's chance to play detective. Here is where the fun begins. Bing Crosby also has a cameo appearance.

Superstar though he may have been, I have to confess that I was never that impressed with Bob Hope's comedy. Admittedly, my exposure to him came late in his career, mostly through his television specials in the 1970's which the elder members of my family insisted on watching. Given his superstar status, I thought I'd try out a Bob Hope movie when I came across this one. In all honesty it's what I would have expected - amusing rather than outright funny and with a somewhat confusing story that held my interest but was never well enough explained.

This is one of those movies that starts at the end and then uses flashbacks to explain how the end came about. In this case, Hope played Ronnie Jackson, a baby photographer who as the movie opens is sitting on death row waiting to be executed. Jackson dreamt of being a private eye, and as the result of a case of mistaken identity, ends up being hired by Countess Montay (Dorothy Lamour) to help find her missing uncle. Here's where the confusing mystery comes in. What we're told is that Montay had an appointment at the State Department and that it had something to do with uranium. There's also a bunch of bad guys out to find a map which ends up in Jackson's possession. Aside from that, the mystery wasn't well explained. Of the bad guys, Peter Lorre was OK and somewhat mysterious, but I thought that Lon Chaney (in a somewhat limited role) was really quite good, as well as being a somewhat sympathetic character. Hope and Lamour were fine; Hope's type of comedy essentially what I remembered from the 70's TV specials. There's a very brief cameo from Bing Crosby at the end of the movie, responded to (out of character) by Hope, who says "that guy will take any part he can get." It's not an outstanding movie by any means, and it's also not a bad movie. Mediocre seems to suit it well. 4/10

Bob Hope is very funny in this enjoyable light comedy. The plot is deliberately crazy and implausible, but creative, and it sets up some funny situations. The rest of the cast is good too, and it all works very well as light entertainment.

Hope plays a photographer who longs to be a detective, and then gets his chance, only to find out that it's a lot more than he can handle. It's a fine role for Hope, and the script also gives him a lot of good material to work with. Dorothy Lamour is suitably mysterious as the woman who involves him in a complicated situation. Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney Jr. add atmosphere and humor as two of Hope's adversaries.

Anyone who likes Hope should enjoy seeing him in "My Favorite Brunette", and it is also recommended for anyone who likes light comedies of the era.

The worst thing about MY FAVORITE BRUNETTE is the bad print TCM is showing. Looks like a poor Public Domain print that is almost worn out with the years.

The comedy itself is a bright one with clever lines and situations. BOB HOPE is a baby photographer mistaken for a private eye by no less than DOROTHY LAMOUR who asks his help in finding her hubby's murderer. Turns out she's really talking about her uncle, but she's a liar (like Mary Astor in THE MALTESE FALCON).

The gags get off to a good start with ALAN LADD asking Bob to mind his office while he packs a gun and goes on a private eye mission. Hope obliges Lamour by showing up at the mansion she occupies, described by Hope as "something left over from Wuthering Heights." PETER LORRE, JOHN HOYT, CHARLES DINGLE, REGINALD DENNY and LON CHANEY, JR. are excellent in sustaining the humor as they go about making things tough for detective Hope. LON CHANEY, JR. is particularly effective in a replay of his dimwit role from "Of Mice and Men". Dingle, likewise, seems to be repeating his role of the crooked Southern gentleman in THE LITTLE FOXES.

Hope is told that Dotty is a schizophrenic imagining that her uncle has been kidnapped and she's only dangerous when emotionally disturbed. He's supposed to believe that the map she talked about and a missing treasure is just part of her illness. "Promise me you'll guard the map with your life," she tells Hope.

Once Hope finds out Carlotta (Lamour) is telling the truth, the gags come fast and furious and he spends the rest of the film coping with the various dangerous situations involving the gangsters.

Part of the comedy comes from the bad guys planting misleading clues in the hope that Hope will find them, to no avail. It's entertaining with Hope at his liveliest and Lamour at her prettiest and a supporting cast that more than compensates for a script that's only fault is that it's pretty predictable from start to finish.

Despite flaws, if you can find a decent print of the film it's worth watching.

On the streets of San Francisco, a mysterious woman named Carlotta appears out of the blue asking a man to help her. He's not really a private detective, but he's so swept off his feet he acts the part anyway. Then her story unravels. He suspects her sanity, not realizing he's only one step behind her en route to the sanitarium.

"Nutty as a fruitcake, but with all that beautiful frosting!" That's not James Stewart talking about Kim Novak, but rather Bob Hope on the subject of Dorothy Lamour, his co-star in this farcical takeoff of the film noir, made more than ten years before Hitchcock's "Vertigo". Maybe the Master should have called it "Deja Vu" instead.

That's not entirely fair. "Vertigo" is a classic on many levels, whereas "My Favorite Brunette" is an amiable timekiller with Hope solid if not sharp, making the best of an uneven set of wisecracks and a wrong-man story even weaker than the one Carlotta spins at the outset. Still, Peter Lorre is on hand to lend the film some Hitchcockian gravitas as one of the key hoods, and the opening set up showing Hope at San Quentin telling his tale to reporters as he awaits the gas chamber gets things off right.

Hope is Ronnie Jackson, a baby photographer whose office is next door to a detective he idolizes. The detective chooses to leave Ronnie alone in his office just as Carlotta walks in, to tell of a man who is either her husband, her uncle, or neither, hand him a ring and a map, and lead him on a chase involving keyhole cameras and invisible golf balls which pits him against Lorre ("Ol' Shortenin' Bread" Ronnie calls him), slick southerner Charles Dingle ("Mint Julep") and muscle man Lon Chaney Jr. ("Boulder Dam with legs").

Seeing Hope's mock-tough-guy persona go through the paces of a Raymond Chandler-style potboiler is fun. He's all show but never learns, to the point that when he jumps a middle-aged woman in one scene, the joke isn't him losing so much as him thinking he could win.

In the beginning we see him on Death Row asking the warden about a reprieve from the governor: "No word, huh? Well, I'll know who to vote for next time." Every time he smokes a cigarette, he tries to sneer at the guard, only he ends up nearly coughing instead.

Director Elliott Nugent keeps the story moving, which helps with the holes, but the film-noir mood he establishes at the opening quickly dissipates into a shooting gallery for Hope's one-liners. Edmund Belion and Jack Rose, the screenwriters, miss a good opportunity to use the story as more of a send-up. Alas, the mystery is played too much on the level, and except for some reaction shots from Lorre, we never see the villains as part of the comedy.

But it's Hope, it's the 1940s, which means you are in for a good time. Plus one thing "Vertigo" didn't have, a terrific last line. Watch it once, and it will be the biggest smile you take away from this underbaked charmer.

Bob Hope is mistaken for a detective in "My Favorite Brunette," a comedy from 1947 costarring Dorothy Lamour and Peter Lorre. The film begins with Ronnie Jackson (Hope) making wisecracks as he sits on death row. He's visited by reporters whom he tells his whole story in flashback. A baby photographer who desperately wants to become a partner to the detective down the hall, Sam (Alan Ladd in a cameo), Ronnie gets his chance when a lady in distress (Lamour) visits Sam's office while he's away. Ronnie pretends he's Sam and before you know it, he's in all kinds of trouble, running from a gang of thugs that includes Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney who are looking for a map.

This is an entertaining comedy with good performances all around. Lon Chaney, Jr. is particularly funny as a strong man/imbecile. Besides Ladd, there's another cameo as well that adds to the fun.

I like these light comedies of Hope's but confess to liking "My Favorite Blonde" better. This is still good, with the exotic-looking Lamour an able costar - and let's face it, as Hope's costar, she'd had a lot of experience.

Funny is a word that hardly does it justice - I've lost count how many times I've seen this Paramount Bob Hope classic down the decades, yet it still came on as fresh as ever last night. About as close as a Hope film came to noir but abounding with stunning smart ass one-liners and every one delivered with impeccable timing. It was so good it was immediately regurgitated into the equally classic Secret Life Of Walter Mitty with Danny Kaye for Goldwyn in the same year, Reginald Denny being in both.

Hope is a San Francisco baby photographer hankering to be a private dick in the manner of his next-office hero Alan Ladd. Through misunderstandings he gets ravelled up in a life or death case involving dark-eyed dreamboat Dorothy Lamour and her shady husband/uncle and his enemies/friends. The witticisms are relentless, even down to little things like Peter Lorre bridling at Hope calling him Cuddles or Hope's initial worries about Lamour's sanity and his safety. I still don't know who the eighth President of the USA was. The plot lost its way slightly after the Sanatorium scenes, even so the script was still sparkling, favourite bits in the hotel room: Lon Chaney wondering if he could crack walnuts with his eyelids; Hope resignedly looking straight at the camera while Lamour loudly badmouths him to the baddies. None of these bits and no one's essay can convey how relentlessly funny MFB is, watch it instead!

To a fan of Bob Hope like me so many good bits make such a good film! Since then how did film comedy go so wrong?

Very funny send-up of film noir private eye movies. Bob Hope plays a baby photographer on death row for a murder he didn't commit. As he awaits his execution, he recounts how he got there by getting mixed up in a conspiracy involving a beautiful woman (Dorothy Lamour). One of Hope's best movies. Lots of funny lines. Features a terrific supporting cast, including Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney, Jr. There are some funny cameos from Alan Ladd and Bing Crosby. This one's in the public domain now so anybody can see it online for free. But that also means most copies are pretty lousy, quality-wise. It's worth the effort to try and find a decent copy.

I caught this on Turner Classic Movies over the summer--my first Bob Hope picture. The plot concerns a baby photographer, Ronnie Jackson, whose office is just down the hall from a Sam Spade-ish private eye, Sam McCloud (played by the mostly absent Alan Ladd). When McCloud is forced to leave for a while, Jackson does the neighborly thing and looks after his office, thereafter getting mixed up in a murderous mystery where danger lurks around every corner and nothing is as it seems.

My Favorite Brunette is no comic masterpiece, but it's fun light viewing. The solid script and direction are bolstered by a good cast. Bob Hope is Bob Hoping it for all he's worth, Dorothy Lamour is suitably sexy as the damsel in distress, and Peter Lorre is both menacing and hilarious as he sends up his screen persona. Lon Chaney, Jr. is also quite enjoyable as a hulking simpleton (obviously a take-off on his turn as Lennie in the 1939 adaptation Of Mice and Men) who's tricked into working for the bad guys.

The mystery at the heart of the plot was satisfying--for me, anyway--working in enough zany twists and turns to stay surprising along the way. Ultimately, though, it's no more important than as the framework from which to hang Hope's mugging and one-liners. The film moves at a fast enough pace that, if one joke fails to take off, another comes along directly behind it. There's no time to get bored, and Hope's comedic style, while perhaps bland to some, is amiable enough for all ages to enjoy. This one's worth checking out.