Double Exposure

Not an overnight movie star, radio comedian Bob Hope paid his dues performing in a score of comedy short subjects. In 1935 and 1936 he starred in several two-reelers directed by Lloyd French, with self-explanatory titles like Watch the Birdie, Shop Talk and Calling All Tars. Warner Bros.' Double Exposure (1935) shows that Hope's skills as a visual comedian were fully formed from the beginning: he sells the humor in typical low Music Hall style, flashing bright smiles and rolling his eyes at his own jokes. Unable to get a picture of the shapely blonde wife (Loretta Sayers) of visiting diplomat Ben Ali Oop (Jules Epailly), a pair of news photographers hire sidewalk photo hawker Robert (Bob Hope) and his incompetent assistant (Johnny Berkes) to do the job. Robert pretends to be a fellow turbaned Arab to gain access to Oop's hotel, and impersonates a hairdresser to get into their hotel suite. Everything else is slapstick pratfalls and painful jokes. Noticing his assistant's loose collar, Robert asks him, "Oh, are you expecting a goiter?" The wife asks if her hair looks a little thin, and Robert quips, "Who wants fat hair?" Forced to hide in the bathroom, Robert says, "Well, at least I'll be safe until Saturday!" Loretta Sayers was in pictures only a few years, as was French comedian Jules Epailly. Unrecognizable as the press photographer is Frank Faylen, in his first film of a very long career. Bob Hope's slapstick stooge Johnny Berkes performs pratfalls as if on a burlesque stage. Hope's popularity on the radio sustained him long enough to win a showcase part in Paramount's all-star comedy The Big Broadcast of 1938. He sang the Oscar-winning song Thanks for the Memory and was launched on a stellar film career that endured for forty years. By Glenn Erickson