THE SEVEN LITTLE FOYS (1955)

Hosting the Oscars® a record 19 times between 1940 & 1978, Bob Hope’s ‘go-to’ gag was always about the awards he gave away but never got.  Even more so after regular co-star Bing Crosby won one for GOING MY WAY/’44.  But Hope was kidding-on-the-square; he really did want that little gold man for a mantlepiece.  So, no surprise to see Bob tilting toward drama, drama with wisecracks, mind you, but still drama, on his very first film under his new deal with Paramount not as studio employee, but as independent contract producer.  In fact, all his early films under the new awning lean this way, with this first one the best balanced, probably because Hope is so well cast as confirmed bachelor, child & woman hating vaudevillian Eddie Foy Sr.  (A bit of a stretch, Foy was twice married/twice widowed before the events covered here; no wonder he was gun shy.)  The story’s a natural, with Foy unable to admit he’s been swept off his feet against his better judgement by Italian ballet beauty Milly Vitale.  Eleven children later, she dies (of consumption or exhaustion?) and he’s got to work the seven surviving kids (all talentless, all strangers to a man always on the road) into the act or lose contact.  Turns out, they’re so unruly, he’s forced to improvise around their incompetence.  That’s the act!  And audiences of the day flocked to see it.  Talk about a can’t miss scenario!  With a neat-as-a-pin triple twist gag ending; two of Hope’s best musical perfs (he does Follies’ great Bert Williams’ NOBODY like nobody’s business, and a teaming with James Cagney, reprising his George M. Cohan, in one of those we’ve-still-got-what-it -takes embarrassments that for once doesn’t embarrass), and a tough edge that keeps sentimentality at bay.  It’s one of Bob’s best mid-period films.  Even with writer Melville Shavelson’s rather timid directing debut.  These late Hope Paramount titles must have slipped out of copyright, so buyer beware of lousy editions.  Decent ones around on this one if you look.*

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Except for the second one, THAT CERTAIN FEELING/’56, which sounds like it might the best.  Instead, here’s a LINK to the third in the series. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/08/after-two-decades-under-contract-bob.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  For a closer facsimile of the real Eddie Foy Sr. (slobber, lisp, and all) see Eddie Foy Jr. cameo as his dad in YANKEE DOODLE DANDY/’42.  He’d later play this script on tv in a Bob Hope produced special, but wasn’t a big enough star for the movie and was a big deal on B’way at the time in THE PAJAMA GAME, a role he’d repeat in the 1958 film.