The Paleface (1948)

Ghostbreakers sorrowful jones and cat and the canary. they were far more funnier than this one. bob hope is good though and i love his one liners and the expressions on his face. the one i cant stand is jane russell her reactions are always like a waxed statue dull lifeless and predictable. she was not very pretty in the outlaw but her attributes did the trick but as far as being a good actress come again. the plot is messy and i loved the theme song. it is watchable but i prefer HOPE with goddard...lamarr..lamour. love the fact that the old paramount crew were still on board....farciot...wally westmore jennings. they did such a good job in SO PROUDLY WE HAIL

I've always been a little bit underwhelmed by Bob Hope. I grew up in a home that watched all of his TV specials with family who thought he was the greatest and funniest comedian ever. I never quite got it. I find him low-key in the extreme; sometimes amusing in a mild, quiet sort of way but nothing to write home about. That also sums up my reaction to "The Paleface." It's OK. Sometimes amusing, and if it's mild and quiet it has some good writing - I'm thinking of Painless Peter Potter (Hope) trying to keep all the advice he had received about his gunfight with the local quick draw artist straight ("he leans to the right so shoot to the left," and so on) as well as the fun song "Buttons and Bows" (sung by Hope.)Potter is a hopeless dentist trying to make his way in the Old West when he gets caught up with Calamity Jane (Jane Russell) - who's been recruited to work as a government agent trying to find out who's getting guns to the Indians. She hooks up with Potter, tricks him into marriage and manages to turn him into the gunfighting hero so that no one would notice her. Russell was fine in the role, but like Hope she didn't overwhelm me.I would say that this was better than the 1960's movie "The Shakiest Gun In The West," which had essentially the same sort of plot with Don Knotts in the role as the dentist. Hope played the role straighter than Knotts would do 20 years later, and that perhaps made it a little easier to take the movie seriously - as comedies go, of course. (5/10)

Never as funny as it might have been, THE PALEFACE is a Bob Hope vehicle that has the old ski-nose playing "Painless" Potter, a bumbling dentist out West who gets tangled up with Cal;amity Jane (Russell) and a bunch of gun runners. Jane is a government agent sent to stop the bad guys, and she marries Painless so she can pose as a clueless married woman. Along the way, she makes her new husband appear to be a fearless gunfighter. The film is long and just not all that funny. Obviously, writer Frank Tashlin agreed, as he made his own sequel several years later that is a real hoot. In SON OF PALEFACE, Painless' grown son teams up with Roy Rogers and Trigger to fight the bad guys. Nothing against Jane Russell, but in the case of these two movies, I'll take Trigger.

I didn't think this was anywhere as great as some reviewers (not here on the IMDb) led me to believe, saying this was "Bob Hope's best movie," "funniest film ever," etc. I found that FAR from the truth, although humor is very subjective. I can think of two of Hope's comedies, just off the top of my head, that were much funnier: The Ghost Breakers and Sorrowful Jones.Anyway, the first half of this film was the worst, just stupid and very few laughs. The second half is much better, after Hope begins to think he's a gunfighter. The second half has some good humor, and helps save the film. This was my first look at Jane Russell. I thought she acted woodenly and wasn't all that pretty. Like this movie, Russell's reputation, looks-wise, is better than the reality. Her chest is what made her. She would have fit better in today's films where hard-looking, tough-talking women are featured.One last thing on the positive side: there is nice, bright color in here, good to see in any 1940s film.