JohnHowardReid I was not over-impressed with this movie when I first saw it on TV back in the late 1960's. I wrote that it began most promisingly with Roland Young (of all people!), brilliantly cast as a smooth killer, but then petered out when Hope and Fleming got going, although I admitted that Hope made a great introduction when he ran into Jack Benny. My main problem was that the movie did not turn out to be the black comedy signaled by the opening scenes, but spent too much time with two secondary plots, mostly involving the boy scouts and intermittently, Rhonda Fleming. Last night, looking at the reasonably duped Columbia DVD (which seems to have been struck from a 16mm TV print, rather than the original negative), I enjoyed the movie much more than I anticipated. I thought Hope, Young and Fleming were all in fine form. Admittedly, the movie was somewhat top-heavy with scouts, but they were at least reasonably amusing. Hall's best film, just about everyone would agree (including me) was "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" (1941) for which he was nominated for Best Director. The Great Lover is no Mr. Jordan – he doesn't even come close – but it's Roland Young who steals the show!

MartinHafer This film begins with one of the strangest casting decisions in film history. Roland Young is seen brutally strangling George Reeves! Considering that Young almost always played mousy men and was quite tiny and Reeves later went on to play Superman on TV, I had a chuckle at this scene! Next, you see Bob Hope escorting a Boy Scout-like group of kids on a cruise ship. He is soon met and befriended by the strangler. And, soon both see and are impressed by a pretty Duchess (Rhonda Fleming). However, none of them really know about the other. Of course they don't know that Young is a killer, but the Duchess is also quite broke and she thinks Hope is a millionaire who can save her! I won't say more, as it might spoil the movie.This movie is exactly what you'd expect from a Bob Hope film from this era--it's pleasant and enjoyable, though it's not what would call "laugh out loud funny". However, the card game scenes are pretty cute and made me smirk.By the way, the DVD from BCI Eclipse is only fair. The print is poor and there are no special features. I don't know if there is another company that has released this as well.

classicsoncall With the start of each Bob Hope movie, I begin my countdown as to when Bing Crosby might make a characteristic unscheduled appearance. So imagine my surprise when all of a sudden Jack Benny pops up in a typical skinflint role offering to change a hundred dollar bill for Hope's character. Hope's reaction to whether it was really the perennial thirty nine year old - "Naw, he wouldn't be traveling first class".You just had to be there during television's Golden Age to make much sense of that scene, which leads me to consider that modern day viewers miss a lot of the in jokes that comedians like Hope, Benny and Crosby were known and caricatured for back in the day. And you know something else? - they all did it without being off color or offensive, even if they managed to offer up a double entendre or three. That's why I keep going back to their films and TV specials, a neat time capsule reminder of life during a simpler time when we could all laugh at ourselves and each other without the politically correct deterrence of possibly offending someone. As for cameos, it probably wouldn't have passed for one at the time, because George Reeves hadn't achieved notoriety yet as the Man of Steel. However it was pretty cool to see him in an opening scene, even if it didn't end so well for his character. Now here's a line that had me doing some quick research. Duchess Alexandria (Rhonda Fleming) remarks to Freddie Hunter (Hope), that "Someday I hope to have seven little boys". It wasn't till some six years later that Hope would star in the biographical film "The Seven Little Foys" - a strange bit of cosmic serendipity. I wonder if Hope ever thought about that?The odd thing for me about the story had to do with Hope's alliance with the Boy Foresters in the picture; for all intents and purposes they were a knockoff of the Boy Scouts, with an oath that was somewhat similar. I wasn't counting, but Hope's character probably managed to break most of the rules regarding Forester behavior. The boys of course, try to keep him on the straight and narrow with mixed results. But then again, who wouldn't stray with Rhonda Fleming on board.With a title like "The Great Lover", one might expect a bit more in the romance department, but this one is played more for laughs and Hope's quick wit. It's not one of the legendary comedian's best or well known films, but Hope fans will enjoy it, and that after all, is why we tune in.

bkoganbing Bob Hope is once again somebody's patsy in The Great Lover. Though this time it almost proves fatal to him in the case of murderous Roland Young. Young's a con artist and card sharp whose modus operandi is to take in two people, a rich mark and a naive doofus and get them into a poker game. Young makes sure the doofus wins in the end, but then they play a bit of two handed poker where Young takes the winnings. And if they object as George Reeves does in the initial scene, Young strangles them and takes the money anyway.The mark in this case is Roland Culver who seems to be carrying over his part from The Emperor Waltz, a titled noble who in this case is in a state of genteel poverty. He's got two assets, a valuable necklace and his daughter Rhonda Fleming. Young covets the former and Hope's attracted to the latter.To get Culver into the game, Young introduces Hope as a millionaire from Ohio. What Hope is actually doing is babysitting a group of Boy Foresters on a trip to Europe for an international gathering. Some of the best comedy in the film comes from Hope trying none to successfully to live up to their clean living creed. In that vein young Richard Lyon proves to be one gigantic pill to be saddled with. He's the head of the Boy Foresters and the nephew of Hope's employer in Zanesville, Ohio. Lyon is the adopted son of Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels and does a very good job of playing straight for some of Hope's best lines. The rest of the Boy Foresters fall in line like good little fascists, except for Gary Gray who likes Hope.Instead of Bing Crosby making an unbilled appearance, Hope is blessed with that other legendary radio comedian Jack Benny who brings his miser act on board. But maybe it wasn't Benny as Hope remarks, no way he'd be traveling first class on the ship.The Great Lover has a lot of good scenes and while it's not at the top tier of films for Bob Hope it's at the top of his second tier of film comedies. Definitely for fans of the man who in fact was raised in Ohio.