Urban fabulist Damon Runyon (of GUYS AND DOLLS fame) hit the trifecta of shameless sentimental slush in this story of a race track tout finding redemption, love & loss after a big bet goes wrong and he hides out in a small town. First filmed by legendary Hollywood drunks Lee Tracy & director Marshall Neilan, both on the cusp of major career falls, then remade for Bob Hope with all tears (and most of the story) removed. In the process, something raw lost from the Depression desperation that lends drive to Runyon’s tall tale. In its place, smooth professionalism with all the embarrassing emotional bits removed. The original story sees Tracy’s slang-spewing race track tout not placing a bet that pays off big time, forcing him to go on the lam.
That’s also how Hope's version starts, but from then on, two different films with Hope and main squeeze Marilyn Maxwell (main squeeze off set, too) using Santas to raise funds for a sham Old Dolls (Ladies) Retirement Home. With a couple of songs, including Christmas perennial ‘Silver Bells,’ and two mob men hoping to skim the donations before Bob has a change of heart that makes everyone either happy or sent to the clink. Slick, slick, slick, but also a real missed opportunity to see Hope work the darker aspects of the actual Runyon piece (jail, marriage, botched childbirth, death, sacrifice, adoption). Even more than Tracy, a skilled wiseguy of the first order (he was B’way’s original Hildy Johnson in THE FRONT PAGE), Hope was a natural for Runyon’s odd rhythm and weird all present-tense writing style. Check out SORROWFUL JONES/’49 to see just how natural.* And director Sidney Lanfield, tightly tied to scripter Frank Tashlin’s usual cartoon style, aids & abets Hope just when he ought to have been challenged rather than enabled. Something Neilan, in his last major directing gig, at least fitfully understands. Some scenes feeling a lot like Leo McCarey’s work . . . just not enough.
ATENTION MUST BE PAID: William Frawley’s in both films, but only magical in the first when he gets to sing Tracy’s baby out of a fit.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *As mentioned, SORROWFUL JONES. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/03/sorrowful-jones-1949.html OR: Robert Montgomery & Maureen O’Sullivan out the same year with nearly the same plot in HIDE-OUT/’34. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/06/hide-out-1934.html
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