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Rating:  - the whole collection
this is a fun collection of some old but steady Bob Hope comedies. The older ones:jesse james,princess and pirate,hong kong and personal favorite, got me covered are classic and timeless.if your a Hope fan these alone are worth the cost.the other 3 movies are a little dated but also fun to watch with the whole family. Bob Hope movies are always entertaning and seldom disapointing.
Rating:  - Thanks for (some of) the memories
It may be safe to say that Bob Hope is a Hollywood legend. He achieved this status through some decent acting and comic timing, along with his USO tours and a few really good movies (most notably, his Road pictures with Bing Crosby). Somewhere along the way, however, I think Bob Hope became a bit of a caricature of himself and his later work didn't really display how good he once was. The MGM Movie Legends Collection of seven of his movies shows the gradual decline in the quality of his work. (To be fair, however, a lot of the failings in these films were beyond his ability to fix.)
The first movie (chronologically) is They Got Me Covered, a World War II movie with Hope as a bumbling war correspondent and Dorothy Lamour as his love interest. He is given a lead on a complex sabotage plot, but his informant is soon killed and the only copy of the notes are in an untranslatable shorthand. This film and the second in the set - The Princess and the Pirate - have Hope at his peak. This second picture has Hope as a 17th century version of a vaudevillian who rescues an incognito princess from a vicious pirate. Unfortunately, he also has the pirate's treasure map, which makes him a very wanted individual.
While the first two movies are on practically the same level as Hope's best movies, a slight decline is seen in the next one, Alias Jesse James, in which he plays an insurance salesman who has sold a policy to the famous outlaw. Now, he has to make sure James stays alive. There's a lot of good humor in this one, but sometimes Hope seems to be doing a Lou Costello imitation, and the attempt to capture the glory of his earlier comic westerns (such as The Paleface) is only partially successful.
The Facts of Life is the movie where the films really start to go downhill. Though still passable, this comedy-drama has Hope and Lucille Ball trying to cheat on their respective spouses and finding an affair is not as easy as it seems. I would imagine at the time that this was a disappointment to many Hope (and Ball) fans who would have expected something a bit more comic and less serious.
Road to Hong Kong is an improvement, thanks to the easy chemistry of Hope and Crosby, but the third member of the Road pictures, Lamour, is relegated to a cameo appearance, and female lead Joan Collins is no Lamour. Nonetheless, the formula is tried and true and works.
The last two movies in the set are easily the worst. In I'll Take Sweden, Hope plays a widowed father of Tuesday Weld. Hope is the ultimate square, and though the film seems to mock teenagers, it actually just makes Hope look dumb. Frankie Avalon is Weld's love interest, but Hope doesn't like him, so he moves off to Switzerland, where she falls for someone even worse. The final film, Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number, is little more than a sitcom episode, with Hope accidentally getting entangled with a movie star. It's one of those stories that could be resolved quickly and cleanly if Hope just speaks the truth immediately, but he doesn't and the forced wackiness ensues.
The last movies are riddled with bad dialogue, contrived plots and cheap-looking sets, all of which were things beyond Hope's control. I do feel, however, that by the time of these films, Hope had been typecast into a role as himself, just spouting off one-liners and seeming like a stand-up comic more than an actor; in fact, in I'll Take Sweden, his character's name (Bob Holcomb) is practically his own.
The set offers little in the way of extras beyond trailers. In the Amazon rating system, the first two movies rate a high four stars, Road to Hong Kong a low four, Alias Jesse James a high three, The Facts of Life a low three, and the last pair barely two stars. Overall, I am giving the set three stars; while it's got some good films, it also is a poor showcase for exactly how good Hope could be.
Rating: - Bob Hope
It was funny, but some of the movies were better than others. The best two movies were Alias Jesse James and I'll Take Sweden. Half are in color and half are from the days of black and white films. In watching these movies, you are able to watch Bob Hope develop (over time) his acting ability in the film format and also his humor expressions.
Rating: - bob makes it look easy.
seven movies prove that bob hope can do no wrong. the comedy is as sharp
as can be in the facts of life while alias jesse james reunites bob with
jane russell. take a chance on this one. you won't be dissapointed.
now if someone will relase beau james on dvd...
Rating:  - worth everything
Great compilation for great legend of Hollywood.. It would be priceless if Road to Bali was included with set..
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