Caught in the Draft (1941)

The year prior to the American declaration of war saw preparation with a draft and even movie stars were not excluded from being forced to enlist. For romantic movie idol Bob Hope, military service is the last thing on his mind, and in order to avoid the draft, he tries all sorts of maneuvers to keep out. But when colonel's daughter Dorothy Lamour encounters him, romance brings on patriotism and the results would make Hirohito laugh!Insincerity as a recruit gets him into all sorts of funny antics as the American army becomes his worst enemy as they strive to make him into a soldier. Joining in on Hope's antics is rising funny man Eddie Bracken as Hope's agent. Veteran character actor Clarence Kolb offers droll straight man slow burns as Lamour's pop. One of the potential recruits reminded me of a heavy set version of Red Skeleton. This was one of several comedies about funny men in boot camp, the most popular being Abbott and Costello's "Buck Privates".I'm surprised by some of the comedy here which the Hays code seems to have missed. In one sequence where Hope sees Lamour for the first time in a bathing suit, he squeezes his hot dog so hard that the wiener actually shoots out of the bun! Most of Hope's comedy is of the cowardly and verbal kind but when the visual takes over, make sure you aren't drinking a beverage at that time. Ironically, in one scene where Hope goes through a batch of unseen pictures, he comes across one which he identifies as Lucille the vivacious redhead. This was two years before the famous red-headed Lucille had changed her hair color! Within a year, Hope would be preparing for his own stint in the service, traveling the world to entertain the real troops!

I saw this movie 30 years or more ago and recall it being quite funny, and while it's not as funny as I remember it being, it's still an enjoyable romp with typical Bob Hope comedy. It's also a movie that portrays a pretty accommodating military. This makes sense within the context of a wartime movie - they didn't want to scare anyone away from the army - but the way Hope casually wanders off base and does various shenanigans without ever getting locked up strains credulity. As I watched this, I found myself wondering why Hope made so many movies with Dorothy Lamour. They don't have any discernible chemistry, although to be fair, Hope was such a non leading man that I'm not sure he ever had on screen chemistry with any woman. I feel like checking out some more Hope movies just to try and figure that out.

Movie star Bob Hope is sensitive to loud noises—when shooting a war movie scene he expects the director to stage the battle silently and then put in the shooting sounds later. And so talk of the impending military draft soon has Bob and his agents Eddie Bracken and Lynne Overton discussing…marriage? Yes—avoiding the draft seems highly desirable, and a marriage deferment seems a likely strategy. Alas, having fallen for a colonel's daughter, a best-laid scheme to fake his enlistment goes awry and he finds himself a private after all. The bulk of the picture follows Hope's efforts to adapt to army life—and his continuing efforts to woo the girl he had originally hoped to marry as a means to deferment. Dorothy Lamour is quite lovely as the object of Hope's attentions; she's easy to root for as she tries to balance her affection for Bob with her loyalty to her military father, who understandably thinks Hope is an idiot. Clarence Kolb is excellent as the colonel—crusty and acerbic, he nevertheless displays love and grudging patience as well. Eddie Bracken is super as always as the buddy; Lynne Overman is good, too, as the agent who never quite forgets that Hope's safety is his own livelihood. There's plenty of typical Hope humor—"Of course I'm not a coward. I'm just allergic to bullets"—mixed in with doses of real patriotism from Dorothy: "How do you know? You can be scared and still be a hero. You know, some of the bravest men have been scared to death going over the top. But they kept on going."It would be a rare Hope movie without at least one winking reference signaling to the audience that we all know it's just a movie; here it's his comment when first glimpsing Lamour through a window: "Mmm, that's a bundle. She looks like Dorothy Lamour with clothes on."No, it's not as riotously funny as Buck Privates or as wisecrack-packed as My Favorite Brunette, but it's nevertheless a very pleasant and solid little picture.

Caught in the Draft finds Bob Hope as an egotistical movie star who may be subject to the draft so he's going to do the unthinkable, get married and get a deferment. But you'd think the last person he'd try that with is a daughter from a military family. Yet Hope pursues Dorothy Lamour in his usual wolfish Hope way, but the net result is he winds up still single and actually enlisting in the army when a Sting like con game backfires on him. But I will say Hope has loyal friends, his agent Lynne Overman and general factotum Eddie Bracken also enlist. To say they don't exactly have the makings of Audie Murphy is to put it mildly. Still what they won't do for a pal. I know I didn't have friends like that back in the day.Caught in the Draft has the usual run of service comedy situations and Hope while not as hopeless a soldier as Lou Costello, still he gets his usual laughs. It's a dated film in the sense we haven't had a draft in this country for almost 40 years, but I still think audiences can appreciate it today.Look for good supporting performances by Clarence Kolb as Lamour's father and Hope's commanding officer and Paul Hurst as the eternal tough training sergeant.