The Paleface

The Paleface one of the funniest films Bob Hope ever did was a godsend to the career of Jane Russell. Take a look at her film credits and see how few there were during the Forties. She did The Outlaw which kept going in and out of release every time Howard Hughes re-edited it. She did a film called The Young Widow which she hated and was a box office flop and then The Paleface.

Although Howard Hughes kept messing around with The Outlaw and kept Russell off the screen for most of the Forties, the man did know about publicity and certainly kept her name before the public. But a movie star has to make movies. So even Hughes realized that and I'm sure he exacted a good price for Russell's services to Paramount for The Paleface.

Hope of course is his usual character. A recent graduate of a dentistry college, he's gone west to seek fame and fortune, Hope the schnook gets tangled up with the notorious Calamity Jane.

Of course Russell is Calamity Jane, she's being offered a pardon in order to trap some no good outlaws selling weapons to the Indians. When her contact is killed and she nearly is also, she picks up Hope and they get married and join a wagon train.

Of course the some of the funniest stuff in The Paleface when Russell does some fancy shooting and let's Hope take the credit for it, giving him an undeserved reputation for fearlessness. One of my favorite bits is when Iron Eyes Cody gets a hold of some of Hope's laughing gas and Hope thinks he's Russell behind a barrier.

Bob Hope got to introduce his second Oscar winning song in The Paleface, Buttons and Bows by the Paramount contract song writers, Jay Livingston and Ray Evans. He sold a few records of it, but the real big hit was done by Dinah Shore. It's now become identified with Russell as well, but she sings it in Son of Paleface, not here.

This was Bob Hope's first trip to the American west in search of laughs and it was a successful expedition.

*** 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".

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.

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.

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.