The Great Lover (1949) User Reviews

'40s comedy from Bob Hope

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 9 October 2013]

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."

Hope On The High Seas Playing Poker Ohio Style

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 3 February 2008]

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.

"We're starting from scratch. You're a duchess without dough, and I'm a millionaire without a mill".

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 20 November 2008]

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.

Last of the Red Hot Hope's

[Spondonman · 7/10 · 17 September 2004]

To me "The Great Lover" was the last great Hope film: he had some good lines, the plot was OK and most importantly Golden Age high production values were much in evidence. The nitrate gleams and is an essential component in the enjoyment of it, Hope and Fleming and the "ship" itself would not have looked as romantic on safety stock film. And the rot that set in with the advent of safety film in the early 1950's had already begun in TGL - just listen to those 2 inept songs, they wouldn't have got as far as being filmed even 5 years previously. The nadir was reached a few years later in "My favourite spy", with a seemingly endless Hope song as excruciating as anything Norman Wisdom could have performed, and utterly ruined an average film for me.

I always counted Roland Young as a villain because I saw this first as a kid, whereas he was a pretty versatile actor and played plenty of goodies in his time too. He's a ruthless card sharper in this however, Roland Culver is a cold steely and "broke" aristocrat who Young wants to fleece, Fleming is his high class daughter the innocent Hope falls for. He in turn is leader of 7 little Boy Forresters with Grumpy as 2nd in command.

Favourite bits: The morning exercises; Hope petulantly parping smoke through one of the boys bugles; getting distracted by Fleming over champagne as only Hope ever could. The bad bits: a/m songs to avoid. I leave the rest to you to find out!

Just about what you'd expect....except for the villain.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 9 September 2010]

This film begins with one of the strangest casting decisions in film history. Roland Young is seen brutally strangling George Reeves! Considering that Young almost always played mousy men and was quite tiny and Reeves later went on to play Superman on TV, I had a chuckle at this scene! Next, you see Bob Hope escorting a Boy Scout-like group of kids on a cruise ship. He is soon met and befriended by the strangler. And, soon both see and are impressed by a pretty Duchess (Rhonda Fleming). However, none of them really know about the other. Of course they don't know that Young is a killer, but the Duchess is also quite broke and she thinks Hope is a millionaire who can save her! I won't say more, as it might spoil the movie.

This movie is exactly what you'd expect from a Bob Hope film from this era--it's pleasant and enjoyable, though it's not what would call "laugh out loud funny". However, the card game scenes are pretty cute and made me smirk.

By the way, the DVD from BCI Eclipse is only fair. The print is poor and there are no special features. I don't know if there is another company that has released this as well.

A superior piece of Bob Hope work.

[rgshanks · 22 November 2000]

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.

Fascinating genre mashup

[gridoon2024 · 6/10 · 9 November 2022]

Bizarre comedy-thriller-romance-musical. The comedy is fairly weak, the romance is too quick, and the musical is no threat to "Singin' In The Rain". It is the thriller part that works best this time, mainly thanks to a supremely creepy, first-class performance by the usually lovable Roland Young; a cold-blooded murder right in the opening sequence is quite jolting to witness in a Bob Hope picture. The cinematography is particualry drab in this one, or maybe there just aren't many good copies in circulation anymore; in any case, this drabness also adds to the thriller elements, particularly near the end. **1/2 out of 4.

Young in fine form!

[JohnHowardReid · 8/10 · 27 October 2016]

I was not over-impressed with this movie when I first saw it on TV back in the late 1960's. I wrote that it began most promisingly with Roland Young (of all people!), brilliantly cast as a smooth killer, but then petered out when Hope and Fleming got going, although I admitted that Hope made a great introduction when he ran into Jack Benny. My main problem was that the movie did not turn out to be the black comedy signaled by the opening scenes, but spent too much time with two secondary plots, mostly involving the boy scouts and intermittently, Rhonda Fleming. Last night, looking at the reasonably duped Columbia DVD (which seems to have been struck from a 16mm TV print, rather than the original negative), I enjoyed the movie much more than I anticipated. I thought Hope, Young and Fleming were all in fine form. Admittedly, the movie was somewhat top-heavy with scouts, but they were at least reasonably amusing. Hall's best film, just about everyone would agree (including me) was "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" (1941) for which he was nominated for Best Director. The Great Lover is no Mr. Jordan – he doesn't even come close – but it's Roland Young who steals the show!

Not That Great

[ferbs54 · 5/10 · 30 November 2007]

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.

The Lady Eve meets Rear Window in fun Bob Hope/Rhonda Fleming comedy/thriller

[s007davis · 8/10 · 22 March 2008]

"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 Bob Hope film is always worth viewing

[rockymark-30974 · 4/10 · 24 January 2021]

Not as good as other Hope films but anything with Hope in it is good for an evening. I tried to include this quote in the Quote section but I found the format too confusing. Maybe someone else with include it. It's rather risque for that era and occurs early in the film.

Boy Forester: Foresters never make mistakes. Hope: Too bad your parents weren't foresters.