Sorrowful Jones

What you will think about this probably depends a lot on if you are looking more for comedy or more for a cute family film...with a strong emphasis on cute. As far as a comedy goes, it's not terribly funny. As a cute film goes, it works reasonably well--mostly because the little tyke is awfully sweet--and not always in a saccharine way. It is clearly designed as a sweet family film and Bob Hope's comedy definitely takes a back seat to this.

The story is about a period in the life of the Damon Runyon character, Sorrowful Jones. All of Runyon's characters had colorful names like this, by the way. Jones is a professional gambler--a sharpie with an aluminum heart. First and foremost, he is interested in money and hasn't an ounce of sentiment about him. However, when a poor schnook leaves his four year-old child with Jones, temporarily, Jones is forced to care for the tyke. Sadly, however, her father runs afoul of a mobster and is killed--leaving the kid to either stay with Hope or go to an orphanage. Naturally, the struggle throughout the film is for Hope to show SOME nurturing skills and force down his natural impulse to be a money-grubbing jerk. To help him in this process is his on-again/off-again girlfriend played ably by Lucille Ball.

In a goofy twist (and one I didn't care for that much), the child becomes the owner of a racehorse...of sorts. Crooks decide to put the horse in the child's name in an effort to dodge the police--but the child becomes enamored with it. This leads to a schmaltzy portion of the film when the child is hurt and ends up in the hospital. They almost give up hope (not the actor) until Bob gets the idea of sneaking the horse into the hospital (this happens all the time). But, to do this, he has to fight thugs who are intent on killing the horse instead.

All in all, this was not a bad Bob Hope vehicle despite the emphasis on schmaltz instead of humor--though I would have preferred more humor and less sentiment. It's agreeable and cute, though as I said above, some may balk at the fact that the humor, such as it is, is pretty restrained. But, Hope did show that he could handle a role with a bit more to it than his usual characters...just a bit.

By the way, there have been four versions of this film. I haven't seen any of the others, so I cannot compare them. But based on the plot, I'm not in a huge hurry to see the rest. Meh.

FYI---Little Mary Jane Saunders grew up to marry Jay Johnstone, the major league baseball player.

Bob Hope stars as Sorrowful Jones in the second screen version of Damon Runyon's "Little Miss Marker". It's a bit of a move in terms of screen characterization for Hope, but not enough of one to upset his fans. There are still the sarcastic asides, self-deprecating and delusional, but the character has a sense of depression implicit in the name that Hope had not brought to other roles. He would expand on this for the next half dozen years, reaching the point where he could play carefully tailored real-life characters like Jimmy Walker and Eddie Foy, that showed his actual abilities as an actor, before he would become a bit stale in the late 1950s.

Although Hope would not adopt the. Fractured English that was a trademark of Runyon's Broadway characters -- only Tom Pedi does -- a competent cast, including Lucille Ball as her most sarcastic, William Demarest, and Thomas Gomez run ably with their parts. Only Mary Jane Saunders as the little girl suffers in comparison, but Shirley Temple had played the role in the first version, cute and bubbly and headstrong. Miss Saunders is simply sweet.

In this remake of the Shirley Temple vehicle "Little Miss Marker," a little girl is left as collateral for a racetrack bet. The good news is that it's a huge improvement over the terrible Temple film. The bad news is that it's still based on the same uninteresting Runyan story. As the little girl, Saunders is much easier to take than Temple. Unlike the earlier version, the focus here shifts from the little girl to the title character, which is a good thing as Hope is always fun to watch. Hope and Ball work well together although they don't get much help from the script here. The ending is far better than the corny finale to the earlier film.

All the versions of the Runyon story are very good. It's just a great story, but this one is clearly the best. A seemingly heartless, stingy bookie accepts a little girl as a marker for a bet, but when the girl's father is killed by notorious gangsters, the bookie, Sorrowful Jones, is stuck with her. The events that follow range from hysterically funny to emotionally provoking. And those qualities are enhanced by great talents. Bob Hope is perfect as the stingy bookie, playing to his usual role. Bruce Cabot does well as the evil gangster, and Lucille Balllands another great role (she had to have the best agent in the business) as the mother figure. But the little girl, Martha Jane Smith, is absolutely divine as the sad faced girl that even makes Bob Hope melt. She is just zillions of times cuter and more emotion provoking than the bland Shirley Temple. If you don't believe me, see for yourself. A classic that need to come to AMC instead of those stupid boring movies they keep showing (Arnie movies, Stallone movies, Friday 13 movies, etc). How about showing real classics like this instead, something people will watch and enjoy!

Sorrowful Jones is both the first time Bob Hope teamed up with Lucille Ball as a leading lady and it's his first try at a Damon Runyon character. It succeeded, but it's not as good as some of the other of Bob Hope's Forties comedies.

This is a remake of Little Miss Marker where Adolphe Menjou played the role of Sorrowful Jones. The problem with this version is that in the first one the main character is the little girl left as a human marker for bookie Sorrowful Jones. The little girl back then was Shirley Temple and it was a Shirley Temple picture.

No child was going to steal the spotlight from Bob Hope and this one has the emphasis on Hope's character which is all wrong. Little Mary Jane Saunders is not Shirley Temple, but who is. Anyway she does not steal the film from Hope and that's wrong.

On the plus side Hope and Lucille Ball show some really good chemistry and they did far better in their next film together Fancy Pants. Also look for good performances from Bruce Cabot as the gambling kingpin and from William Demarest as Hope's sidekick.

But if you want to see Hope and Ball at their best I recommend Fancy Pants.