I admit to loving Bob Hope in the '40s. He was cute, he had great delivery, and I loved that naive persona. In The Great Lover, he's a scout leader who falls for Rhonda Fleming on board ship, all the while he's being eyed by Roland Young as his next mark. Young plays a card shark who lets his mark win, then suggests one last cut of the cards for a winner take all. And of course he wins. When he doesn't, he still wins because he murders his victims and steals their money. The first victim we're shown is George "Superman" Reeves.Fleming and her father are impoverished royalty en route to sell a valuable necklace. Jim Backus, playing a detective after Young, is also on board.Some funny bits, with Fleming looking beautiful and Hope in great form. The best is when he has a $100 bill and a man asks to see it and then nearly pockets it - Jack Benny. Hope walks away from him, stops, and then says to himself, "No -- he'd never be in first class."

With the start of each Bob Hope movie, I begin my countdown as to when Bing Crosby might make a characteristic unscheduled appearance. So imagine my surprise when all of a sudden Jack Benny pops up in a typical skinflint role offering to change a hundred dollar bill for Hope's character. Hope's reaction to whether it was really the perennial thirty nine year old - "Naw, he wouldn't be traveling first class".You just had to be there during television's Golden Age to make much sense of that scene, which leads me to consider that modern day viewers miss a lot of the in jokes that comedians like Hope, Benny and Crosby were known and caricatured for back in the day. And you know something else? - they all did it without being off color or offensive, even if they managed to offer up a double entendre or three. That's why I keep going back to their films and TV specials, a neat time capsule reminder of life during a simpler time when we could all laugh at ourselves and each other without the politically correct deterrence of possibly offending someone. As for cameos, it probably wouldn't have passed for one at the time, because George Reeves hadn't achieved notoriety yet as the Man of Steel. However it was pretty cool to see him in an opening scene, even if it didn't end so well for his character. Now here's a line that had me doing some quick research. Duchess Alexandria (Rhonda Fleming) remarks to Freddie Hunter (Hope), that "Someday I hope to have seven little boys". It wasn't till some six years later that Hope would star in the biographical film "The Seven Little Foys" - a strange bit of cosmic serendipity. I wonder if Hope ever thought about that?The odd thing for me about the story had to do with Hope's alliance with the Boy Foresters in the picture; for all intents and purposes they were a knockoff of the Boy Scouts, with an oath that was somewhat similar. I wasn't counting, but Hope's character probably managed to break most of the rules regarding Forester behavior. The boys of course, try to keep him on the straight and narrow with mixed results. But then again, who wouldn't stray with Rhonda Fleming on board.With a title like "The Great Lover", one might expect a bit more in the romance department, but this one is played more for laughs and Hope's quick wit. It's not one of the legendary comedian's best or well known films, but Hope fans will enjoy it, and that after all, is why we tune in.

"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 ****.

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.