The Paleface


1h 31m 1948
The Paleface

Brief Synopsis

An inept dentist must rescue his outlaw wife from the Indians.

Film Details

Genre
Comedy
Western
Release Date
Dec 24, 1948
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
Paramount Pictures, Inc.
Distribution Company
Paramount Pictures, Inc.
Country
United States

Technical Specs

Duration
1h 31m
Sound
Mono (Western Electric Recording)
Color
Color (Technicolor)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
1.37 : 1
Film Length
10 reels

Synopsis

Sharpshooter and outlaw Calamity Jane is released from prison in order to catch renegades who have been smuggling guns to the Indians. She is ordered to Fort Deerfield, where she plans to join up with lawyer Jim Hunter and pose with him as a pioneer couple traveling West. Hunter is killed before Jane reaches him, but has left word for her to contact a friend of his named Hank Billings in the small town of Buffalo Flats. Jane is followed there, and makes a narrow escape with "Painless" Peter Potter, a timid, quack correspondence school dentist, whom she marries for the wagon train trip. Painless, completely oblivious to Jane's ulterior motives for marrying him, attempts to make love to her, but is met with a sharp thud on the back of his head every time he tries to kiss her. During an Indian attack on a pioneer camp, Jane deftly kills nearly a dozen Indians singlehandedly, but lets everyone, including Painless, believe he did the killing, hoping that the renegades will believe he is a federal agent. Meanwhile, in Buffalo Flats, Toby Preston, the renegades' leader, receives word that a new federal agent is about to arrive with the wagon train. When the wagon train pulls into town, Jane learns from Hank that two loads of dynamite came with them. Believing him to be the agent, Preston's men immediately attempt to get rid of Painless by ordering a saloon girl named Pepper to seduce him, thereby inciting the lethal jealousy of her boyfriend Joe. Painless talks tough and gives Joe until sundown to get out of town, and Jane decides to let him be killed in order to get rid of him. At the last minute, as Painless walks out into the street to meet Joe for a duel, Jane decides to save Painless in order to use him as bait, and shoots for him from a window, killing Joe. Hank later enters Jane and Painless' room with an arrow in his back and tells her that the dynamite is in the undertaker's parlor. Jane sends Painless after the dynamite, and he bravely holds up the renegades, but then is abducted by an Indian. He and Jane are then taken hostage at an Indian camp, where she confesses that she married him to aid her in catching the outlaws, but now loves him. Also at the camp is the white turncoat, Jasper Martin, whom Jane recognizes as one of the governor's aides. As Jane is tied to a stake and prepared for burning, Painless, transformed by Jane's love, rigs the dynamite to blow, and they escape. Later, as Jane and Painless leave for their honeymoon, she is pulled from the wagon by one of the horses and dragged off into the distance.

Cast

Bob Hope

"Painless" Peter Potter

Jane Russell

Calamity Jane

Robert Armstrong

Terris

Iris Adrian

Pepper

Robert Watson

Toby Preston

Jack Searl

Jasper Martin

Joseph Vitale

Indian scout

Charles Trowbridge

Governor Johnson

Clem Bevans

Hank Billings

Jeff York

Joe

Stanley Andrews

Commissioner Emerson

Wade Crosby

Jeb

Chief Yowlachie

Chief Yellow Feather

Iron Eyes Cody

Chief Iron Eyes

John Maxwell

Village gossip

Tom Kennedy

Bartender

Henry Brandon

Wapato, Medicine Man

Francis J. Mcdonald

Lance

Frank Hagney

Greg

Skelton Knaggs

Pete

Olin Howland

Undertaker

George Chandler

First patient

Nestor Paiva

Second patient

Earl Hodgins

Clem

Arthur Space

Zach

Edgar Dearing

Sheriff

Dorothy Grainger

Bath house attendant

Charley Cooley

Mr. "X"

Eric Alden

Bob

Babe London

Woman on wagon train

Loyal Underwood

Bearded character

Billy Engle

Pioneer

Al M. Hill

Pioneer

Houseley Stevenson

Pioneer

Margaret Field

Guest

Laura Corbay

Guest

Patsy O'byrne

Charwoman, in bathhouse

Lorna Jordan

Girl in bathouse

Jody Gilbert

Woman in bathouse

Harry Harvey

Justice of the peace

Paul E. Burns

Justice of the peace

Hall Bartlett

Handsome cowboy

Stanley Blystone

Onlooker

Bob Kortman

Onlooker

Oliver Blake

Western character

Lane Chandler

Tough looking galoot

Syd Saylor

Cowboy

Walden Boyle

Hotel clerk

John "skins" Miller

Bellhop

Len Hendry

A westerner

Duke York

Henchman

Ethan Laidlaw

Henchman

Rolando Barrera

Indian

Dick Elliott

The mayor

Sharon Mcmanus

Child

Carl Andre

Horseman

Ted Mapes

Horseman

Trevor Bardette

Horseman

Kermit Maynard

Horseman

Paul Dunn

Jerry Hunter

Eugene Persson

Billy Andrews

Marlyn Gladstone

June Glory

Maria Tavares

Betty Hannon

Dee La Nore

Charmienne Harker

Jerry James

William Meader

Dorothy Abbott

Lee Blanchard

Kuka Tuitama

Ralph Gomez

Milton Frieburn

Sonny Chorre

Ralph Willingham

Titus Spencer

Leroy Johnson

Tim Nelson

Chick Hannon

Ethel Bryant

Dick Farnsworth

Crew

Ralph Axness

Assistant Director, 2d unit

Claire Behnke

Script Supervisor

Charles Berner

Makeup Artist

Monte Brice

Contr on Special seq

George Bruggeman

Stunts

Monroe W. Burbank

Associate (Color)

Art Camp

Props

Dean Cole

Hair

Sam Comer

Set Decoration

John Cope

Sound Recording

Archie Dalzell

Camera Operator

Billy Daniels

Dances staged by

Barney Dean

Contr on Special seq

Tony Denocenzo

Cableman

Joe Deyong

Technical Advisor

Mary Kay Dodson

Costumes

Hans Dreier

Art Director

Andy Durkus

Assistant prod Manager, 2d unit

Josephine Earl

Dance Director

Farciot Edouart

Process Photography

Joe Egli

Casting

Ray Evans

Composer

Ed Fitzharris

Wardrobe

Paul Franz

Stage eng

Alvin Ganzer

Assistant Director

Stanley Goldsmith

Assistant prod Manager, 2d unit

Bertram Granger

Set Decoration

L. Greenhill

Stunts

George Hamer

Recording

Grace Harris

Wardrobe

Edmund Hartmann

Original Screenplay

Earl Hedrick

Art Director

Ed Henderson

Stills

Len Hendry

Dial coach

Paul Hill

Technicolor Camera

Ellsworth Hoagland

Editing

Don House

Stunts

Bill Hurley

Livestock

Dev Jennings

Camera, 2d unit

Gordon Jennings

Director, 2d unit

Gordon Jennings

Special Photography Effects

Al Jermy

Pub

R. L. Johnston

Production Manager

Natalie Kalmus

Technicolor Color Consultant

Wallace Kelley

Camera, 2d unit

Wallace Kelley

Transparencies Camera

Howard Kelly

Gaffer

Floyd Knudtson

Assistant cutter

Charles Leahy

Camera Assistant

Sam Levine

Wardrobe

Joseph J. Lilley

Composer

Jay Livingston

Composer

Al Mann

Casting, 2d unit

Harry Marsh

Technicolor Camera

Charles Mason

Props Assistant

John Maxwell

Dial coach

Danny Mccauley

2d Assistant Director

Richard Mcwhorter

Assistant Director, 2d unit

Gene Merritt

Sound Recording

Mickey Moore

2d Assistant Director

P. Moore

Stunts

R. Morales

Stunts

Eddie Morse

Casting, 2d unit

E. Newmeyer

Grip, 2d unit

Gertrude Reade

Hair

Ray Rennahan

Director of Photography

Al Roelofs

Art Director Assistant

Jack Rose

Additional Dialogue

Joe Schuster

Electrician

Melville Shavelson

Contract Writer

John Smirch

Mike grip

Lavaughn Speer

Hair

Robert St. Angelo

Stunts

Gile Steele

Men's Wardrobe

Frank Tashlin

Original Screenplay

F. Thayer

Makeup Artist

J. Thompson

Props, 2d unit

Darrell Turnmire

Grip

Robert L. Welch

Producer

Marvin Weldon

Screenplay clerk, 2d unit

Wally Westmore

Makeup Supervisor

Buster Wiles

Stunts

W. Willingham

Double for Jane Russell

Henry Wills

Double for Bob Hope

Bill Woods

Makeup Artist

Charles Woolstenhulme

Production Manager

Victor Young

Music Score

Film Details

Genre
Comedy
Western
Release Date
Dec 24, 1948
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
Paramount Pictures, Inc.
Distribution Company
Paramount Pictures, Inc.
Country
United States

Technical Specs

Duration
1h 31m
Sound
Mono (Western Electric Recording)
Color
Color (Technicolor)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
1.37 : 1
Film Length
10 reels

Award Wins

Best Song

1948

Articles

Bob Hope: Thanks for the Memories - THE CAT AND THE CANARY Among the 6 Films Featured in BOB HOPE: THANKS FOR THE MEMORY


Bob Hope was the snappy urban wiseguy with an easy line of smart remarks and a comic cowardice behind the confident front, a one-liner comic whose timing, self-effacing demeanor and audience rapport took him from stage to radio to screen. This collection opens on the younger Hope, before he hit the road with Bing Crosby and slid into a more cynical byplay, with Bob and Bing constantly double-crossing one another in matters of love and money. Hope is funny in those "Road" movies-he defined his career with those exotic farces of urban wiseguys in paradise fighting over Dorothy Lamour and lobbing self-aware cracks to an audience savvy to Hope's show-biz credentials-but he's not a guy you'd necessarily want to pal around with. He's much more relatable in a quartet of earlier films featured in this set, starting with Thanks for the Memory (1938). Adapted from a Broadway comedy by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (most famous for scripting The Thin Man and It's A Wonderful Life) and named after the Oscar winning song that Bob Hope introduced in the film The Big Broadcast of 1938, the film reunites him with co-star Shirley Ross. Hope is an ad man and aspiring novelist and Ross his fashion model wife, who returns to work so he can devote himself to his writing. It's a slim little comedy of the idle class in depression-era New York, co-starring Charles Butterworth and Hedda Hopper as two of the amiable moochers who keep crashing their apartment for all-night parties. The film never concerns itself with how this struggling couple manages to support these high-society vagrants and bounce back from a night of drinking for a day of work and is simply content to let us enjoy their company and Hope's easy banter. Along with the title song, Hope and Ross perform the lovely duet "Two Sleepy People," singing each other to sleep as dawn breaks after another party.

The heart of the set belongs to three films Hope made with Paulette Goddard. The young beauty starred opposite Charles Chaplin (whom she secretly married) in Modern Times and famously was a front-runner for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, but it was The Women that showed off her talents as a sly comic actress with a sassy edge, and she became a leading lady in her own right opposite Hope in their version of the oft-filmed haunted house chestnut The Cat and the Canary (1939). Originally filmed in 1927 by Paul Leni (in a version that has yet to be topped), it's a familiar story if only for the all the clichés that it spoofs. The family of the deceased gather in a spooky old mansion (here located in the middle of a bayou swamp) of an eccentric millionaire for the reading of the will and must spend the night in the place to meet the terms of the will. Goddard is the bubbly heroine who is named sole beneficiary (and thus a target for the relative next in line), a spooky servant goes around predicting things like "One will die tonight" and there's an escaped patient from the nearby asylum (in the middle of this swamp?) running around, but never fear. The family's resident celebrity Wally (Hope) is on hand to kid the spirits away. "Don't big old empty houses scare you?" asks one relative (Nydia Westman doing a Zasu Pitts kind of goofy comic relief). "No me," quips Hope, "I've played vaudeville." It's hokey stuff with hidden doors and secret passages and a hidden treasure, which director Elliot Nugent stages with all the style and tension of a sitcom. But Hope and Goddard have marvelous chemistry and Hope is completely amiable, using wisecracks to cover up his discomfort and fear. "I always joke when I'm scared," he confesses to heroine Goddard. "I kind of kid myself into being brave." Hope's delivery makes this less a laugh line than a confession and a promise he's got integrity and the courage to both reveal his vulnerabilities and overcome them. Goddard, meanwhile, is a spunky beauty with crack timing, a born comedienne too often called upon to play the straight man and provide the sex appeal. She does both admirably here and, when the film became a hit, was rewarded with a return engagement with Hope.

The Ghost Breakers (1940) is pretty much a rehash of the same formula, this time with the haunted mansion relocated to Cuba. While Goddard is repeatedly warned away from the place by the suspicious executor of the will, radio celebrity and gossip monger Hope is on the run from New York gangsters. Like Cat, it's based on a stage play that spoofs haunted house stories and ghost story conventions, this one tossing in a zombie (Noble Johnson, doing the traditional Caribbean-style catatonic sleepwalker of a zombie), an animated suit of armor and more hidden rooms and passages. It's even less convincing than Cat but director George Marshall makes an effort to construct the proper atmosphere around these city folk on a haunted safari in voodooland. Both films manage to repeatedly get Goddard down to slips and negligees before the half hour mark and The Ghost Breakers goes one better by putting her in a swimsuit (logical attire for midnight to a spooky island) and a flimsy dress which gets torn off in a monster chase. A very young Anthony Quinn appears in two roles (a New York gangster and his twin brother!) and Richard Carlson co-stars.

Nothing But the Truth (1941) spins another gimmick-Hope is stock broker who bets $10,000 that he can tell the truth for 24 hours-into a familiar web of misunderstandings, mistaken identities and romantic antics. It plays as a more sardonic No, No Nanette with an earnest Hope at the center of the bet and a trio of conniving, lying, borderline criminal business associates (Edward Arnold, Leif Erickson and Glenn Anders) springing every dirty trick in the book on him in a string of public humiliations and private ruses. Goddard has much more fun in this one as a dizzy heiress who rattles a blue streak while falling for the hapless Hope, who can't tell anyone about the bet. It's pure stage farce, all contrivance and coincidence, blandly directed by Elliot Nugent, who just seems to let things happen as the camera rolls. Luckily there's plenty going on as the characters go sneaking around on a private houseboat, slipping in and out of bedrooms and dressing gowns while Hope wraps himself in a flouncy nightgown to escape his rivals. Not only does Hope get the girl like a real leading man, it's the rare film where Hope is the most honest man on screen. Edward Arnold, who played his share of big screen fat cats, embraces the cynical side of the persona as he tries to sell worthless stock to his customers (which doesn't seem quite as funny in light of recent real-life financial shenanigans) and Glenn Anders is almost too sleazy for the film (you may recognize him as the boozy George Grizby from The Lady From Shanghai). It's fascinating how the film manages to strike a happy ending while letting its scheming supporting cast get away with stock fraud and infidelity, winking at the audience the whole time as if we're complicit in the whole sordid business.

The four films feature Bob Hope in a role we're not used to seeing: a light romantic lead with a quick wit. His wisecracks cover up nervousness and fear but are harmless and self-effacing. Where he schemed for a kiss from the leading lady in the "Road" films, he's a genuinely nice guy here. And Goddard makes for a spunky leading lady, holding her own against opposite Hope and, in Nothing But the Truth, showing her own skills as an underrated comedienne. Both are better than their material. They also include the worst stereotypes available to African American performers, with Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson as a comic janitor in Thanks for the Memory and Willie Best as Hope's manservant, a quivering, drawling caricature who gets called "boy" by most everyone except Hope and made the butt of countless jokes (not all of them offensive), in The Ghost Breakers and Nothing But the Truth. Best establishes a natural rapport with Hope while swapping wisecracks (and often getting the better of Hope), but it's a demeaning stereotype.

The biggest disappointment with the set is its haphazard approach to Hope's career. After a quartet of films that captures Hope in his first leading roles, it's filled out with two forties films that not only feel like they've been plucked from the catalogue at random, but are already available DVD. Road to Morocco (1942) is the second of the "Road" movies that Hope made with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour and has previously been released both individually and in an earlier set of "Road" comedies. The Paleface (1948) is a very funny cowboy spoof with tenderfoot Easterner Hope as a would-be "painless" dentist who gets lassoed into marrying shapely outlaw Jane Russell. While The Ghost Breakers has also been previously available, it makes a good match with the two other Hope-Goddard pairings, but these's no real purpose to these films, not with so many other films-Hope's feature debut in The Big Broadcast of 1938, for instance, or his Dorothy Lamour pairings-that could have been included. (While The Cat and the Canary was briefly available in a public domain edition of dubious legitimacy and quality, this is the first studio release of the film.)

The six films are collected in a three-disc digipak that also includes featurettes celebrating Hope's decades-long work with the USO. It includes a pair of mini-documentaries-"Bob Hope and the Road to Success" and "Entertaining the Troops" (featuring exclusive footage of Hope's USO tours)-and the archival shorts "Command Performance 1944" and "Command Performance 1944" (which are newsreel-style recordings of the Hope-hosted radio show produced by the Army-Navy Screen Magazine) and the all-star WWII short Hollywood Victory Caravan. They spotlight yet another side of Hope, the public comedian and tireless entertainer who gave up so much time not just to entertain the troops but to take charge of the USO program and bring other Hollywood celebrities and entertainers into the fold. They make a worthy companion to these films.

For more information about Bob Hope: Thanks for the Memories, visit Universal Home Entertainment. To order Bob Hope: Thanks for the Memories, go to TCM Shopping.

by Sean Axmaker
Bob Hope: Thanks For The Memories - The Cat And The Canary Among The 6 Films Featured In Bob Hope: Thanks For The Memory

Bob Hope: Thanks for the Memories - THE CAT AND THE CANARY Among the 6 Films Featured in BOB HOPE: THANKS FOR THE MEMORY

Bob Hope was the snappy urban wiseguy with an easy line of smart remarks and a comic cowardice behind the confident front, a one-liner comic whose timing, self-effacing demeanor and audience rapport took him from stage to radio to screen. This collection opens on the younger Hope, before he hit the road with Bing Crosby and slid into a more cynical byplay, with Bob and Bing constantly double-crossing one another in matters of love and money. Hope is funny in those "Road" movies-he defined his career with those exotic farces of urban wiseguys in paradise fighting over Dorothy Lamour and lobbing self-aware cracks to an audience savvy to Hope's show-biz credentials-but he's not a guy you'd necessarily want to pal around with. He's much more relatable in a quartet of earlier films featured in this set, starting with Thanks for the Memory (1938). Adapted from a Broadway comedy by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (most famous for scripting The Thin Man and It's A Wonderful Life) and named after the Oscar winning song that Bob Hope introduced in the film The Big Broadcast of 1938, the film reunites him with co-star Shirley Ross. Hope is an ad man and aspiring novelist and Ross his fashion model wife, who returns to work so he can devote himself to his writing. It's a slim little comedy of the idle class in depression-era New York, co-starring Charles Butterworth and Hedda Hopper as two of the amiable moochers who keep crashing their apartment for all-night parties. The film never concerns itself with how this struggling couple manages to support these high-society vagrants and bounce back from a night of drinking for a day of work and is simply content to let us enjoy their company and Hope's easy banter. Along with the title song, Hope and Ross perform the lovely duet "Two Sleepy People," singing each other to sleep as dawn breaks after another party. The heart of the set belongs to three films Hope made with Paulette Goddard. The young beauty starred opposite Charles Chaplin (whom she secretly married) in Modern Times and famously was a front-runner for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, but it was The Women that showed off her talents as a sly comic actress with a sassy edge, and she became a leading lady in her own right opposite Hope in their version of the oft-filmed haunted house chestnut The Cat and the Canary (1939). Originally filmed in 1927 by Paul Leni (in a version that has yet to be topped), it's a familiar story if only for the all the clichés that it spoofs. The family of the deceased gather in a spooky old mansion (here located in the middle of a bayou swamp) of an eccentric millionaire for the reading of the will and must spend the night in the place to meet the terms of the will. Goddard is the bubbly heroine who is named sole beneficiary (and thus a target for the relative next in line), a spooky servant goes around predicting things like "One will die tonight" and there's an escaped patient from the nearby asylum (in the middle of this swamp?) running around, but never fear. The family's resident celebrity Wally (Hope) is on hand to kid the spirits away. "Don't big old empty houses scare you?" asks one relative (Nydia Westman doing a Zasu Pitts kind of goofy comic relief). "No me," quips Hope, "I've played vaudeville." It's hokey stuff with hidden doors and secret passages and a hidden treasure, which director Elliot Nugent stages with all the style and tension of a sitcom. But Hope and Goddard have marvelous chemistry and Hope is completely amiable, using wisecracks to cover up his discomfort and fear. "I always joke when I'm scared," he confesses to heroine Goddard. "I kind of kid myself into being brave." Hope's delivery makes this less a laugh line than a confession and a promise he's got integrity and the courage to both reveal his vulnerabilities and overcome them. Goddard, meanwhile, is a spunky beauty with crack timing, a born comedienne too often called upon to play the straight man and provide the sex appeal. She does both admirably here and, when the film became a hit, was rewarded with a return engagement with Hope. The Ghost Breakers (1940) is pretty much a rehash of the same formula, this time with the haunted mansion relocated to Cuba. While Goddard is repeatedly warned away from the place by the suspicious executor of the will, radio celebrity and gossip monger Hope is on the run from New York gangsters. Like Cat, it's based on a stage play that spoofs haunted house stories and ghost story conventions, this one tossing in a zombie (Noble Johnson, doing the traditional Caribbean-style catatonic sleepwalker of a zombie), an animated suit of armor and more hidden rooms and passages. It's even less convincing than Cat but director George Marshall makes an effort to construct the proper atmosphere around these city folk on a haunted safari in voodooland. Both films manage to repeatedly get Goddard down to slips and negligees before the half hour mark and The Ghost Breakers goes one better by putting her in a swimsuit (logical attire for midnight to a spooky island) and a flimsy dress which gets torn off in a monster chase. A very young Anthony Quinn appears in two roles (a New York gangster and his twin brother!) and Richard Carlson co-stars. Nothing But the Truth (1941) spins another gimmick-Hope is stock broker who bets $10,000 that he can tell the truth for 24 hours-into a familiar web of misunderstandings, mistaken identities and romantic antics. It plays as a more sardonic No, No Nanette with an earnest Hope at the center of the bet and a trio of conniving, lying, borderline criminal business associates (Edward Arnold, Leif Erickson and Glenn Anders) springing every dirty trick in the book on him in a string of public humiliations and private ruses. Goddard has much more fun in this one as a dizzy heiress who rattles a blue streak while falling for the hapless Hope, who can't tell anyone about the bet. It's pure stage farce, all contrivance and coincidence, blandly directed by Elliot Nugent, who just seems to let things happen as the camera rolls. Luckily there's plenty going on as the characters go sneaking around on a private houseboat, slipping in and out of bedrooms and dressing gowns while Hope wraps himself in a flouncy nightgown to escape his rivals. Not only does Hope get the girl like a real leading man, it's the rare film where Hope is the most honest man on screen. Edward Arnold, who played his share of big screen fat cats, embraces the cynical side of the persona as he tries to sell worthless stock to his customers (which doesn't seem quite as funny in light of recent real-life financial shenanigans) and Glenn Anders is almost too sleazy for the film (you may recognize him as the boozy George Grizby from The Lady From Shanghai). It's fascinating how the film manages to strike a happy ending while letting its scheming supporting cast get away with stock fraud and infidelity, winking at the audience the whole time as if we're complicit in the whole sordid business. The four films feature Bob Hope in a role we're not used to seeing: a light romantic lead with a quick wit. His wisecracks cover up nervousness and fear but are harmless and self-effacing. Where he schemed for a kiss from the leading lady in the "Road" films, he's a genuinely nice guy here. And Goddard makes for a spunky leading lady, holding her own against opposite Hope and, in Nothing But the Truth, showing her own skills as an underrated comedienne. Both are better than their material. They also include the worst stereotypes available to African American performers, with Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson as a comic janitor in Thanks for the Memory and Willie Best as Hope's manservant, a quivering, drawling caricature who gets called "boy" by most everyone except Hope and made the butt of countless jokes (not all of them offensive), in The Ghost Breakers and Nothing But the Truth. Best establishes a natural rapport with Hope while swapping wisecracks (and often getting the better of Hope), but it's a demeaning stereotype. The biggest disappointment with the set is its haphazard approach to Hope's career. After a quartet of films that captures Hope in his first leading roles, it's filled out with two forties films that not only feel like they've been plucked from the catalogue at random, but are already available DVD. Road to Morocco (1942) is the second of the "Road" movies that Hope made with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour and has previously been released both individually and in an earlier set of "Road" comedies. The Paleface (1948) is a very funny cowboy spoof with tenderfoot Easterner Hope as a would-be "painless" dentist who gets lassoed into marrying shapely outlaw Jane Russell. While The Ghost Breakers has also been previously available, it makes a good match with the two other Hope-Goddard pairings, but these's no real purpose to these films, not with so many other films-Hope's feature debut in The Big Broadcast of 1938, for instance, or his Dorothy Lamour pairings-that could have been included. (While The Cat and the Canary was briefly available in a public domain edition of dubious legitimacy and quality, this is the first studio release of the film.) The six films are collected in a three-disc digipak that also includes featurettes celebrating Hope's decades-long work with the USO. It includes a pair of mini-documentaries-"Bob Hope and the Road to Success" and "Entertaining the Troops" (featuring exclusive footage of Hope's USO tours)-and the archival shorts "Command Performance 1944" and "Command Performance 1944" (which are newsreel-style recordings of the Hope-hosted radio show produced by the Army-Navy Screen Magazine) and the all-star WWII short Hollywood Victory Caravan. They spotlight yet another side of Hope, the public comedian and tireless entertainer who gave up so much time not just to entertain the troops but to take charge of the USO program and bring other Hollywood celebrities and entertainers into the fold. They make a worthy companion to these films. For more information about Bob Hope: Thanks for the Memories, visit Universal Home Entertainment. To order Bob Hope: Thanks for the Memories, go to TCM Shopping. by Sean Axmaker

The Paleface (1948)


By 1948 the Western genre was ripe for satire and screenwriter Frank Tashlin wanted to send-up Owen Wister's novel The Virginian and all the cliches of the Western from the fearless hero to the final shootout on main street. The result was The Paleface (1948) which features a cowardly hero known as "Painless" Peter Potter (Bob Hope), an inept dentist who often entertains the notion that he's a crack sharpshooter and accomplished Indian fighter. Fleeing the scene of a shootout, Potter travels west, accompanied by Calamity Jane (Jane Russell), an undercover government agent who hoodwinks him into marrying her. The reason for her subterfuge is revealed during the first scenes of the movie though Potter remains clueless of her true motives until their journey's end.

A combination of ingredients helped make The Paleface one of the top five box office hits of 1948. Not only was it Bob Hope's first color feature and his highest-grossing picture to date but it also teamed him for the first time with Jane Russell, Howard Hughes' screen discovery from The Outlaw (1943). Russell proved to be the perfect foil for Hope - sarcastic, tough and humorless. Their on-screen chemistry was so good together that Paramount re-teamed them for a sequel, Son of Paleface (1952). In her autobiography, Russell recalled the making of The Paleface: "Paramount was the first "family" lot I'd worked on....My dressing room was next to Bob Hope's. I was sent to wardrobe and fitted for period dresses plus a buckskin suit with Indian beads and fringes. Heaven! Also a corset and pantaloons. Ugh! The script by Frank Tashlin was a delight, and I discovered that my role was...dry and flat. When the critics later said I was "expressionless," I knew I managed to hit it: a stone face. Bob Hope was a ball...He's even funnier off screen than on, and everything's relaxed except his chocolate eyes, which never stop darting, never missing a thing. His name for me was "Lumpy." Russell also noted that Hope was a golfing fanatic and would occasionally slip off to play a few holes regardless of director Norman Z. McLeod's busy production schedule.

Looking back on her career, Russell once admitted that she was disappointed in most of her films but she did enjoy making The Paleface. "This picture was a complete package," she said, "No lines were changed, one director, always on schedule, and no sweat. What a pleasure! I thought, "So this is how movies are made? I can't believe it." It was fun from morning till night."

One person who didn't find The Paleface a total delight was Frank Tashlin who later told Peter Bogdanovich in an interview (for the book, Who the Devil Made It) that "after seeing the preview of it, I could've shot [the director] Norman McLeod. I'd written it as a satire on The Virginian [1929, Victor Fleming], and it was completely botched. I could've killed that guy. And I realized then that I must direct my own stuff." And he made good on his promise soon after The Paleface; his solo directorial debut began with The First Time (1952), a domestic comedy starring Robert Cummings.

The Paleface received one Oscar nomination for Best Song - "Buttons and Bows" by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans - and won in that category. It's certainly one of the highlights of the film with Hope serenading himself and would actually be reprised for the sequel, Son of Paleface. By the way, The Paleface was later remade as a Don Knotts vehicle entitled The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968).

Producer: Robert L. Welch
Director: Norman Z. McLeod
Screenplay: Edmund L. Hartmann, Jack Rose, Frank Tashlin
Cinematography: Ray Rennahan
Costume Design: Mary Kay Dodson
Film Editing: Ellsworth Hoagland
Original Music: Ray Evans, Jay Livingston, Victor Young
Principal Cast: Bob Hope (Painless Peter Potter), Jane Russell (Calamity Jane), Robert Armstrong (Terris), Iris Adrian (Pepper), Bobby Watson (Toby Preston), Jackie Searl (Jasper Martin), Charles Trowbridge (Governor Johnson).
BW-91m.

By Jeff Stafford

The Paleface (1948)

By 1948 the Western genre was ripe for satire and screenwriter Frank Tashlin wanted to send-up Owen Wister's novel The Virginian and all the cliches of the Western from the fearless hero to the final shootout on main street. The result was The Paleface (1948) which features a cowardly hero known as "Painless" Peter Potter (Bob Hope), an inept dentist who often entertains the notion that he's a crack sharpshooter and accomplished Indian fighter. Fleeing the scene of a shootout, Potter travels west, accompanied by Calamity Jane (Jane Russell), an undercover government agent who hoodwinks him into marrying her. The reason for her subterfuge is revealed during the first scenes of the movie though Potter remains clueless of her true motives until their journey's end. A combination of ingredients helped make The Paleface one of the top five box office hits of 1948. Not only was it Bob Hope's first color feature and his highest-grossing picture to date but it also teamed him for the first time with Jane Russell, Howard Hughes' screen discovery from The Outlaw (1943). Russell proved to be the perfect foil for Hope - sarcastic, tough and humorless. Their on-screen chemistry was so good together that Paramount re-teamed them for a sequel, Son of Paleface (1952). In her autobiography, Russell recalled the making of The Paleface: "Paramount was the first "family" lot I'd worked on....My dressing room was next to Bob Hope's. I was sent to wardrobe and fitted for period dresses plus a buckskin suit with Indian beads and fringes. Heaven! Also a corset and pantaloons. Ugh! The script by Frank Tashlin was a delight, and I discovered that my role was...dry and flat. When the critics later said I was "expressionless," I knew I managed to hit it: a stone face. Bob Hope was a ball...He's even funnier off screen than on, and everything's relaxed except his chocolate eyes, which never stop darting, never missing a thing. His name for me was "Lumpy." Russell also noted that Hope was a golfing fanatic and would occasionally slip off to play a few holes regardless of director Norman Z. McLeod's busy production schedule. Looking back on her career, Russell once admitted that she was disappointed in most of her films but she did enjoy making The Paleface. "This picture was a complete package," she said, "No lines were changed, one director, always on schedule, and no sweat. What a pleasure! I thought, "So this is how movies are made? I can't believe it." It was fun from morning till night." One person who didn't find The Paleface a total delight was Frank Tashlin who later told Peter Bogdanovich in an interview (for the book, Who the Devil Made It) that "after seeing the preview of it, I could've shot [the director] Norman McLeod. I'd written it as a satire on The Virginian [1929, Victor Fleming], and it was completely botched. I could've killed that guy. And I realized then that I must direct my own stuff." And he made good on his promise soon after The Paleface; his solo directorial debut began with The First Time (1952), a domestic comedy starring Robert Cummings. The Paleface received one Oscar nomination for Best Song - "Buttons and Bows" by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans - and won in that category. It's certainly one of the highlights of the film with Hope serenading himself and would actually be reprised for the sequel, Son of Paleface. By the way, The Paleface was later remade as a Don Knotts vehicle entitled The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968). Producer: Robert L. Welch Director: Norman Z. McLeod Screenplay: Edmund L. Hartmann, Jack Rose, Frank Tashlin Cinematography: Ray Rennahan Costume Design: Mary Kay Dodson Film Editing: Ellsworth Hoagland Original Music: Ray Evans, Jay Livingston, Victor Young Principal Cast: Bob Hope (Painless Peter Potter), Jane Russell (Calamity Jane), Robert Armstrong (Terris), Iris Adrian (Pepper), Bobby Watson (Toby Preston), Jackie Searl (Jasper Martin), Charles Trowbridge (Governor Johnson). BW-91m. By Jeff Stafford

Quotes

Brave men run in my family.
- Potter

Trivia

Until Blazing Saddles (1974) came out, this was the highest grossing western parody of all time.

Notes

In the film's closing scene, after Jane Russell is dragged off, Bob Hope says to the camera, "What do you want, a happy ending?" According to a Paramount News item, Paramount negotiated with representatives of Howard Hughes, who at the time of production had Russell under personal contract, to obtain the actress for this film. Information in the Paramount Collection at the AMPAS Library reveals the following information about the production: The filmmakers originally considered Barbara Stanwyck for the part of "Calamity Jane." The wagon chase scene was shot on location in Chatsworth, and other scenes were shot at China Flats, the Conejo Airport and the Iverson Ranch in Chatsworth, all in CA. Hollywood Reporter news items include the following actors in the cast, but their appearance in the final film has not been confirmed: Clint Dorrington, Speed Hansen, Ethel Greenwood, Marion Gray, Victor Travers, Al Stewart, Harry Ansel, Elmo Lincoln, Jack Ford, Tex Driscoll, The Cirillo Brothers-Michael, Charles and Tony-Robert Espinoza, James Archuletta, Richard Numena and Chief Sky Eagle.
       Songwriters Jay Livingston and Ray Evans won an Academy Award for Music for their song "Buttons and Bows." Although Paramount News reported in October 1947 that the Robert Mitchell Boychoir had been signed to sing "Buttons and Bows" in Paleface, the song was performed in the film as a solo by Bob Hope. A recording of the song was released prior to the film's opening, and several reviews mention that it became a hit without the aid of the film. A reported three million copies of the record and 700,000 copies of the sheet music were sold as of 1949, when orchestra leader and songwriter Freddie Rich filed a plagiarism suit over the song. Paramount, Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, Decca, Famous Music, RCA Victor, Columbia Records and Capital Records were named as defendants in the half-million-dollar suit. After "Buttons and Bows" was used in the film's 1952 sequel, Son of Paleface, Rich, who claimed portions of the song were taken from his score for Paramount's 1942 film Wildcat (see below, added $250,000 to his estimate of damages. According to various sources, twenty-two to thirty-two bars of "Buttons and Bows" were in question. A jury turned in a verdict in favor of Paramount, and Rich lost a later appeal in February 1955.
       As noted above, in 1952, Hope and Russell starred in a sequel to The Paleface called Son of Paleface, directed by Frank Tashlin. In 1968, The Paleface was remade into The Shakiest Gun in the West, with Alan Rafkin directing and Don Knotts and Barbara Rhoades starring. Among the many other films featuring Martha Jane Canary, popularly known as "Calamity Jane," are: the 1923 Famous Players-Lasky film Wild Bill Hickock, directed by Clifford S. Smith and starring Ethel Grey Terry and William S. Hart (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1921-30; F2.6360); the 1936 Cecil B. DeMille film The Plainsman, starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1931-40; F3.3472); the 1949 film Calamity Jane and Sam Bass, directed by George Sherman, and starring Yvonne de Carlo and Howard Duff; and the 1995 United Artists film Wild Bill, directed by Walter Hill, and starring Ellen Barkin and Jeff Bridges.

Miscellaneous Notes

Released in United States Fall October 30, 1948

Released in United States Fall October 30, 1948