Paris Holiday (1958)

This film has some VERY strange casting and I am not sure what the producer (Bob Hope) was thinking, nor what the film's writer (once again, Hope) had in mind. After all, why get the great French comic, Fernandel, to appear in the film in a major role...and yet he speaks French the entire time and Hope speaks only English. Often, they just hang out together and you wonder why--what keeps them together?! Couldn't they have gotten a French comic who also spoke English?! There's also another odd casting decision, but it works well and the part is small. For some odd reason, the writer/director Preston Sturges plays a French man. And considering that the film was made in France, I am not sure why they did this--though Sturges was surprisingly good in his small role. One other unusual role went to the lovely Anita Ekberg--who oddly got higher billing than the equally lovely Martha Hyer--even though her role was minuscule in comparison."Paris Holiday" begins on the cruiser, the Ile de France. There, Bob Hope meets Hyer and immediately begins making boorish sexual innuendos towards her. This sort of thing was not uncommon for a Hope film, but he comes on particularly strong here--so strong you wonder how she can fall in love with his character. This occurs thanks to Fernandel--who plays himself and a bit of a cupid. Now I did think it strange that Hope basically played himself, a famous American comic and movie star, yet he was called 'Bob Hunter'--yet Fernandel played himself. This ruse seemed very unnecessary.During the cruise, Ekberg breaks into Hope's room twice to search it. She's looking for something--but what? Later, once they are all in Paris, you learn that she's working with some counterfeiters and that they now are trying to kill Hope. Considering that his one-liners are VERY weak throughout the film, I really couldn't blame them! Can Hope extricate himself AND get the girl? Well, considering he wrote the film, I severely doubted it as I watched! My biggest complaint is not that Hope has such limp lines (which he wrote--so he has no one else to blame) but the complete waste of Fernandel. The Frenchman is cute here--but not all that funny (except when he's in drag late in the film--not THAT's something to see). I've seen him in a few other films and liked him very much and know he's capable of much more. Also, while some die-hard fans might disagree, as Hope aged, the quality of his films declined. His heyday was clearly the 1940s and by the late 50s, the films just weren't that funny. Now "Paris Holiday" isn't bad--it just isn't particularly funny. So, if you are a Hope fan, it's worth seeing--if not, you probably won't be particularly impressed--especially at the horrible scene involving the helicopter and the two ladies in the car (uggh!).

I guess Bob Hope figured it out by the time of the Keystone Cop-like finale, hanging from an aerial trapeze suspended from a runaway helicopter. He uttered a similar line near the end of "My Favorite Spy" in another slapdash ending. Hope's partner in crime here is French comedian actor Fernandel, his named shortened by a letter to Fernydel for no apparent reason I can think of, other than it sounding a bit funnier. Hope's character runs to type, that of a somewhat cowardly leading man with an eye for the babes but unsure of himself when the heat really gets poured on, a la his first meeting with Anita Ekberg on board the cruise ship.The plot of the story was probably more complicated than it had to be. It would have been enough that the villains were attempting to steal a famed writer's new script for a movie, but the story was based on a massive counterfeit scheme that might have ruined the entire European economy. In a sample of art imitating life, Preston Sturges makes a brief appearance as that writer, probably wondering how he got himself into this vehicle.Not that the film is that bad, if viewed as a random sample of Bob Hope's filmography, it's readily passable. However he did far better films, notably the Road series with Crosby and Lamour. The Hope-Fernandel team up didn't seem to be an inspired combination, as virtually all of the Frenchman's lines were in his own language. His delivery of English slang in the courtroom setting could have been one of the snappier scenes instead of merely adequate. Still, there were a few bits of genuinely funny moments like Bob's hijacking of a pigeon, and Fernandel's shipboard 'sick' routine to free up the lounge chairs. A little over the top to be sure but it worked.I probably should mention Martha Hyer's reserved but graceful portrayal of State Department employee Ann McCall who Bob proceeds to romance. After a rocky start they manage to become a serious couple, although I never really caught the point where that relationship turned for the better. Anita Ekberg appears as a mysterious spy and gets a lot of obvious profile time in the picture, and just as with Miss Hyer, her character shifts course near the end of the picture for no apparent reason.

To give you an idea of how bad this is the highlight is a rip-off from Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, an early (1938) Billy Wilder screenplay. In Bluebeard Edward Everett Horton is attempting to get into a mental hospital to visit Gary Cooper. Twice he knocks at the door; twice the door is opened and shut on him. He tries again. Knocks. The door is opened. He barks like a dog. Ah, come in, m'sieu. This time around Fenandel is trying to get in to see hope but what Wilder and Lubitsch accomplished in under sixty seconds is here parlayed into a few minutes. Trivia buffs are always going to want to check out Preston Sturges playing a French playwright modelled on Sacha Guitry - if Serge Vitry doesn't help you nothing will. Having bombed two years earlier with The Iron Petticoat - a sort of Ninotchka without the style - Hope, who takes credit for the 'idea' tried a similar format again with no better results: in this movie Martha Hyer falls for Hope and winds up with him; the following year she rejected SINATRA in Some Came Running. Nuff said. There are a couple of half-decent one-lines but one liner does not a movie make.

Anita Ekberg's the highlight here in a comedy that needed a real villain for Hope and French clown Fernandel to play off. Instead we get a bunch of black-suited Keystone cops types who chase Hope around for the last half-hour of the picture. Lots of weak slapstick stuff in zis veddy zilly French movie.