This is a Bob Hope film (which I picked up in Berryville, Arkansas, in 2024, but it’s also a Fernandel film, which it does not indicate on the cover–the cover says it stars Bob Hope, Anita Ekberg, and Preston Sturges. So I was a little confused when the main titles repeated Bob Hope Fernandel and then Fernandel Bob Hope. The gag, which played out whilst the tracking on the videocassette automatically adjusted with its crackle, buzz, and blur, was that the two comedians’ names were arguing over top billing in the film.
In it, Bob Hope plays a comedian/movie star on his way to Paris to buy a play from a famous playwright to use for a new movie. On the ship, he meets a beautiful State Department employee (played by Martha Hyer) and a famous French comedian (Fernandel). A beautiful woman (Ekberg) bumps into him and pockets his room key. She searches his luggage but cannot find what she is looking for. Hope’s character, Bob Hunter, macks on the embassy employee and hijinks ensue. When Hunter gets to Paris, he hangs with his new friend and makes headway on the macking, but “authorities” want him out of the country, and when he does not go, he narrowly avoids accidents that could kill him. He meets with the playwright, who explains (in not so many words), that the play is the MacGuffin, and Hunter can pick it up the next day at such and such place. So it’s a race to get the MacGuffin before the bad guys find it, and Hunter eventually does although sidetracked by being picked up for the murder of the playwright and then committed to an asylum because of his “delusions.”
So it’s a pleasant, lightweight movie. If you like Bob Hope–you’re old, man–you’ll like the film. It reminded me a lot of Charade, but this film came out five years earlier, so it’s not influenced by or taking on the Cary Grant film.
I said it’s also a Fernandel film because some of the film is in French, and although some spots have subtitles, many do not. So I’ll bet that the French got to see additional jokes fitting with Fernandel’s line than the Americans did.
But: The real controversy is Anita Ekberg or Martha Hyer?
Martha Hyer plays the State Department employee:
Anita Ekberg plays the enemy agent who runs hot and cold on Bob Hunter:
I just can’t pick a side in this debate.
