NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

JohnHowardReid 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!

s007davis "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 ****.

bkoganbing 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.

Spondonman 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!