Although many of the same people who made this mess of a 1941 film were also involved in the original hit 1940 Broadway production, something definitely went wrong in the transition to film, and that something is Bob Hope who was not in the original show. Instead of letting this mild satire on contemporary politics in the style of "Of Thee I Sing" play as it must have in New York, Hope and his army of gag writers apparently shoved in a ton of meaningless machine gun gags, including a few on such wartime topics as immigration. The Norwegian ballerina Vera Zorina, wife of George Ballanchine at the time, was then a big star on Broadway, but pretty as she was, the camera did not love her. The only saving grace of this embarrassingly misguided musical is the superb clowning of the great Victor Moore as the befuddled senator. He, too, was a great star of the theater, but unlike the others in this film he somehow knew how to underplay his comedy for the camera. A few of the many songs Irving Berlin wrote for Broadway were retained for the film, most delightfully the catchy tune, "You're Lovely and I'm Lonely," which Zorina and Moore do hilariously as they might have done it on Broadway, in this case without the overbearing scene-stealing presence of Hope. Hope was a great screen personality and made many fine films, but this is not one of them.
Review of Louisiana Purchase
