US 91m Dir: Norman Z. McLeod Key Cast: Bob Hope and Jane Russell
Original Screenplay
This comedy Western was one of Bob Hope's biggest films and though it's likeable enough, I found it to be fairly lacklustre.
Outlaw Calamity Jane (Jane Russell) is tasked with uncovering white traders selling guns and weapons to Native Americans in exchange for a full pardon. Jane meets hapless dentist 'Painless' Potter and concocts a scheme to marry him, make it look like he is a federal agent and allow him to be killed in order to keep her own cover. Things don't quite go to plan and Jane begins to realise she has feelings for Painless.
The plot feels surprisingly complicated but it is largely shoved to the background in order to allow Hope to have a series of extended skits. Much of the comedy here comes from Jane staging it so that Painless and everyone around him believes he is a sharp-shooting hero when in reality Jane did the shooting from a hidden position. In some ways this was kind of fun but the character behaves very arrogantly which made him far less likeable in my eyes- I think it would also have been funnier if he had been adamantly protesting but failed to convince everyone else.
I'm not really familiar with Bob Hope's work and I was fairly ambivalent about his performance here. He broadly creates a character who is likeable but I found the comedy more amusing than outright hilarious. This was Jane Russell's first foray into comedy and she is great here- she is the straight role to match Hope's comic one but she also gets a few great lines.
I suspected that a film with this title from 1948 was going to be problematic and I was right with the film giving stereotypical and racist depictions of Native Americans. I've seen far more problematic depictions and at least some of the Native American characters are actually played by people from that background but the film still remains uncomfortable viewing.
Mildly amusing but best left in the past in so many ways.
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