Another day, another old movie at the Stanford. Tonight, I'm going to see "Ghost Breakers" (no, not "Ghostbusters") and "The Road to Morocco", two great old Bob Hope movies.
One of the reasons to see old Bob Hope movies is so that you can discover how funny he actually was at one time. Most of us have only been exposed to his awful TV specials of the 70s and 80s and even I, used to scratch my head wondering what the appeal of this guy was, and when I found out he used to be funny, scratched my head again wondering why he didn't continue to be funny straight up until his death at age 100 in 2003.
As far as Hope's movies go, you really can't go wrong with most of the movies he made before 1960. I don't know why that is. Either, Hope was getting too old and complacent or he lost his writers or both. The movies he made from 1960-72 are watchable ("The Road to Hong Kong") to downright painful ("Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!")
Someone (I think Leonard Maltin) speculated it was because Hope never changed his onscreen persona of a kind of a lecherous coward, which worked fine when Hope was in his 40s and 50s, but didn't seem to work as well when Hope got into his 60s, 70s and 80s.
Anyway, if you get a chance to see these movies (both on DVD), you would be in for a real treat.
BTW, I looooooooove Dorothy Lamour. Oh, and Bing Crosby is in this, too.
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