Director: Elliot Nugent
One of Bob Hope’s great genre spoofs came in 1942 when he directly satirized Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps in My Favorite Blonde. The film became such a hit that it was turned into a trilogy of similarly themed spy thrillers, pairing Hope with an attractive leading lady and a supporting cast who play things deadly straight. My Favorite Brunette, the second picture in the series, doesn’t quite reach the heights of its predecessor but it is amusing nonetheless. Hope has now found himself in a typical hardboiled detective film, with elements somewhat reminiscent of the previous year’s Notorious (including a McGuffin that involves uranium). That Dorothy Lamour is his co-star loses some of the luster of the previous film (which paired the bizarre team of Hope and Madeleine Carroll), but she provides the usual fine work as foil for the comedian. Still, the great juxtaposition is Hope himself in the context of a standard issue noir—the underrated comedian was among the most experimental artists of the 1940s in terms of playing with genre. He becomes the audience surrogate, a “fish out of water” struggling with the tropes of an all-too-familiar entertainment. If My Favorite Blonde positioned him better as an everyman (this quasi-sequel is winking even by Hope’s standards), they both show his ability to seamlessly integrate his persona within drastically different filmic universes and keeping the narrative stakes in tact.
Director: Elliot Nugent
In the second of three collaborations between Jimmy Durante and Lupe Velez in 1934, Durante plays a radio star who struggles to find a gag writer. Along comes Nick (Norman Foster), a stodgy intellectual type who longs to become a great poet. Their partnership transforms Nick into an arrogant louse whose attraction to Durante’s sexpot co-star (Velez) ruins his relationship with his supportive girlfriend (Marion Nixon). In the early-goings, the script navigates some interesting territory in discussing the contradiction that is writing for profit and writing for pleasure, as well as the cynical nature of comedy writing itself (Nick is conditioned not to write new jokes, but rather endlessly recycle the old ones). There is little else worth mentioning, though, with a stilted visual style rendering the musical numbers unmemorable. The irony shouldn’t be lost on viewers that a film about a comedian looking for new jokes doesn’t itself involve very many laughs. Nixon, who gave a great performance in Frank Borzage’s After Tomorrow, is mostly wasted in the thankless role, as are the underutilized roster of supporting players (including three of the very best: Eugene Pallette, Sterling Holloway, and Franklin Pangborn).
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