"The Great Lover" is just another one of Bob Hope's many solid comedy vehicles he made during his prime period(1940-1955), mostly for Paramount. His timing was perfect then and his gift for playing the cowardly everyman forced into bravery by the villains in the situation while winning the affections of the film's beautiful leading lady(this time it's lovely Rhonda Fleming) is in full force here. It also helps that his comedy writers gave him strong material during this period as well. Alexander Hall("The Doctor Takes a Wife") keeps things running at a fast pace and "The Great Lover" wisely does not outstay its welcome with its brief 80 minute running time. The film also features appearances by a pre-Superman George Reeves and Jim Backus, 14 years before he and Hope would reunite in "Critic's Choice".HERE COME THE SPOILERS FOR THIS FILM AND THE LADY EVE AND READ WINDOW! What stood out to me in "The Great Lover" was how it recalled and foreshadowed 2 much more famous films. The novelty of Hope getting involved with the daughter of a cardsharp nobleman aboard a luxury liner recalled Preston Sturges' "The Lady Eve" while the sequence where Rhonda Fleming is investigating Roland Young's cabin with Hope trapped outside foreshadowed Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece "Rear Window" where Grace Kelly is caught in Raymond Burr's apartment with Jimmy Stewart unable to help her.Bottom line: 80 minutes of laughs and fun for Hope fans. Only problem is the title "The Great Lover" doesn't really seem to suit the plot. *** out of ****.

Bob Hope is once again somebody's patsy in The Great Lover. Though this time it almost proves fatal to him in the case of murderous Roland Young. Young's a con artist and card sharp whose modus operandi is to take in two people, a rich mark and a naive doofus and get them into a poker game. Young makes sure the doofus wins in the end, but then they play a bit of two handed poker where Young takes the winnings. And if they object as George Reeves does in the initial scene, Young strangles them and takes the money anyway.The mark in this case is Roland Culver who seems to be carrying over his part from The Emperor Waltz, a titled noble who in this case is in a state of genteel poverty. He's got two assets, a valuable necklace and his daughter Rhonda Fleming. Young covets the former and Hope's attracted to the latter.To get Culver into the game, Young introduces Hope as a millionaire from Ohio. What Hope is actually doing is babysitting a group of Boy Foresters on a trip to Europe for an international gathering. Some of the best comedy in the film comes from Hope trying none to successfully to live up to their clean living creed. In that vein young Richard Lyon proves to be one gigantic pill to be saddled with. He's the head of the Boy Foresters and the nephew of Hope's employer in Zanesville, Ohio. Lyon is the adopted son of Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels and does a very good job of playing straight for some of Hope's best lines. The rest of the Boy Foresters fall in line like good little fascists, except for Gary Gray who likes Hope.Instead of Bing Crosby making an unbilled appearance, Hope is blessed with that other legendary radio comedian Jack Benny who brings his miser act on board. But maybe it wasn't Benny as Hope remarks, no way he'd be traveling first class on the ship.The Great Lover has a lot of good scenes and while it's not at the top tier of films for Bob Hope it's at the top of his second tier of film comedies. Definitely for fans of the man who in fact was raised in Ohio.

A middling Bob Hope movie that provides only occasional laffs, the poorly titled "The Great Lover" (1949) proved something of a disappointment for me, especially in light of the infinitely superior Hope picture "The Ghost Breakers" (1940) that I'd just seen a few days earlier. In "The Great Lover," Hope plays a scoutmaster from N. Zanesville, Ohio who is chaperoning his small troop of obnoxiously upright brats on a trans-Atlantic boat voyage whilst getting involved with destitute duchess Rhonda Fleming and becoming the pawn of cardsharp/psycho strangler Roland Young. Patently unrealistic antics ensue, some of them mildly entertaining, but not enough for consistent amusement. Still, the picture DOES have enough going for it to warrant a mild recommendation. Rhonda Fleming, 26 here and extremely beautiful, makes a nice foil for Hope, though it's a pity her gorgeous red hair can't be appreciated in this B&W film. She and Skislopenose perform a cute musical number, too. Also fun are some cameos and bit parts by that ol' skinflint Jack Benny (uncredited), as well as George "Superman" Reeves and Jim "Mr. Magoo" Backus. It's also interesting to see the usually mild-mannered Roland "Topper" Young playing against type as the crazy villain. Unfortunately, the "good folks" at Brentwood Communications have done it again, offering another lousy-looking/sounding DVD from a crappy 16mm print source, and with no extras to speak of. All in all, while fun enough, "The Great Lover" wasn't that, um, great.

I've always found it difficult to write anything lengthy or analytical about straight comedies. This is not because I don't enjoy them - nothing could be further from the truth, especially in the case of any offering which includes the talents of the great Bob Hope, with or without Crosby. The reason, I believe, lies in the fact that such pictures generally work only by reference to the viewer's direct involvement in them - rather like the experience of belly-laughing continuously for 45 minutes at the comedian's turn at a sportsmen's evening, but without being ever able to remember one gag afterwards. So often, the plot is all too familiar and holds no major surprises. The performances of the stars are generally what you would expect from them, and differ purely in the level of quality from picture to picture, and, for screen comics, the writing is invariably geared to their own particular talents.All this is true of "The Great Lover". Bob Hope is close to his very best as a scout leader returning by boat to America from Europe with his troop and drawn as Roland Young's stooge into murder, intrigue and, of course, romance. As in so many of his pictures of the forties and fifties, he plays a reluctant hero, a role which enables him to display the whole range of his trademark features - the mock cowardice, the way he controls his overheating in the romantic scenes, the witty asides and the cheeky but innocent double entendres.So what makes this picture different or special? In order to answer that, I watched the movie again before writing this review, but I still couldn't come up with a reason. Sure enough, the support playing is more than adequate, the plot simple but still interesting, and Hope is - well - Hope. He just does those things which you associate with him, but somehow the gags and his delivery always seem fresh and unforced and, despite the similarity in content, he always makes the material appear original. I can only therefore come to the conclusion that I like the film because it is a superior piece of Bob Hope work - and I like Bob Hope's work. That is the best recommendation I can give it.