Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

JohnHowardReid I'm surprised this movie received such laudable reviews. Although I've now reached the age when I have a lot of trouble remembering even the title of the movie I saw yesterday, let alone what it was about and who was in it, I remember seeing "Bachelor in Paradise" on first release quite well. I enjoyed it far more than the audience did, but I'm still amazed that Hope was nominated for a Golden Globe and actually won the 1962 Laurel Award. The movie has a slow start. It's not until the sequence in which Lana Turner shows Hope over his prospective house that the wisecracks flow thick and fast. Unfortunately, it's the one highlight in an otherwise somewhat pedestrian Hope vehicle that is over-clogged with Miss Turner whose role has obviously been built up. She is such an uninteresting performer, even Prentiss upstages her. She's only effective as a foil for Hope. Her own scenes, especially the one with Porter, are boring. But Sundberg and McGiver make the best of their thin material.

Applause Meter Bob Hope is AJ Niles, a writer notorious for having penned controversial books on the male/female relationship, and now finds himself exiled to Paradise, that being the name of the California suburban subdivision where he takes refuge. The character of Niles allows Hope full license to play out his comedic persona at its most familiar---the snide, self-satisfied deliveryman of one-liners meant to wither his target. Yes, this is Bob, the iconic performer of the Eisenhower 1950s, an entertainer whose shtick everyone in America was comfortable with. Even when buffoonery is called for, Hope projects arrogance and swagger; a case of the private man intruding into the public image. Lana Turner is Rosemary Howard the real estate agent who rents the house to Niles setting in motion a train of events that disrupt the whole community. Niles just can't help himself, anonymity is against his nature; he becomes the village Yentl, the meddling, intrusive busybody who dislodges the neighborhood's equilibrium and subsequently the lives of its residents. Lana Turner was once a cute, ingénue with acting potential until Hollywood manufactured her into a "glamour goddess." In this movie at age 40, Turner was well established as a self- conscious actress, plaster cast-stiff, without any real depth or emotive spontaneity in her performance. Every mannerism, ever walk is calculated for correct poise and posture. The make-up artists and hair dressers only accentuated this frozen appearance with painfully perfect application of cosmetics and a hair-do that could only be dislodged by a tsunami. There's not much to say about the storyline itself. Disgruntled with this "known libertine and seducer," the husbands sign a petition to evict the Casanova Niles from his home and oust him from the community. The females, excepting a few puritanical matrons, protest this and rally in his defense. Niles was only trying to help them make their marriages more exciting; he was a public servant, a benevolent family counselor. That tall pair of actors Paula Prentiss and Jim Hutton are once again teamed as a romantic couple, here a married one, who are the focus of Nile's ministrations. The movie is dated, a cultural commentary of the era. Unless you're a big fan of Bob Hope or are just interested in opening a time capsule from a world long buried, pass this one by. For being a historical curio, I give it a "3."

morris Hammond I watch this every time it's on cable, mainly because it is a graphic memento of "Camelot" - a time in America of sheer optimism and middle class power. This movie revels in the 60s suburban life style and the fact even the middle class was shrugging off stuffy Victorian sexuality. But within a setting of Bob Hope's dry humor, lots of hot 60s women, the BIG cars, the ranch style canyon subdivision houses - and the consumptive 60s lifestyle. Gotta love it on nostalgia value alone but as one of the better Hope 60s comedies, peppered with his slick double entendre one-liners bounced off a bevy of Hollywood hotties, it's a winner as well.

wes-connors Playboy bachelor writer Bob Hope (as Adam J. Niles) owes back taxes, so he goes to live in "Paradise Village" as "Jack Adams" and work on a titillating new best-seller. The San Fernando Valley suburb turns out to be full of unfulfilled married women, several of whom fawn over Mr. Hope He has reluctantly agreed to refrain from sex, but how Hope quickly forgets. Helping out is beautiful blonde secretary Lana Turner (as Rosemary Howard), the utopian community's spokeswoman who eventually gets cozy with Hope. Not funny or original as a comedy, rather "Bachelor in Paradise" is a fair example of accidentally stylish sixties chic.**** Bachelor in Paradise (11/1/61) Jack Arnold ~ Bob Hope, Lana Turner, Jim Hutton, Paula Prentiss