BACHELOR IN PARADISE (1961)

After tackling low-budget Hollywood Horror with CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON/’54; TARANTULA/’55; THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN/’57, sharp B-pic director Jack Arnold took on a different sort of intractable monster, the increasingly disengaged post-Paramount Bob Hope.*   In one of the better leaky vessels that passed for Hope vehicles in the ‘60s, he’s an author of naughty bestsellers on sex habits around the world suddenly forced to go undercover (so to speak) in a modest California tract home development to pay off taxes.*  Turns out, he’s the sole bachelor around.  And since he works from home during the day while all those nosy neighboring housewives are free from husbands and kids . . .  Yikes!  Such a smart, smarmy set up, it seems impossible to miss completely, and it doesn’t.  Hope landing plenty of the glib one-liners that passed for dialogue in his later films.  He doesn’t even appear to be looking past his acting partners to read off cue cards.  Divorcée Lana Turner (she calls herself a bachelor BTW, not a bachelorette) co-runs the suburban paradise with only one home model to choose from (hers, which she rents to Bob, is pink).  Farcical situations bring many a missed opportunity, but you do get a chance to see who does and doesn’t show comic chops.  Kudos to Paula Prentiss, completely outshining everyone else.  (What a loss when she largely dropped out of sight.  The sultry voice, the clotheshorse frame, the comic-primed physicality; she might have followed Carole Lombard or Kay Kendall, two more gifted gals with shortened careers.  Elsewise, interest lies mostly in the glossy look inside & out from glamor cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg who gives us that pristine 1961 style that made real Supermarkets look like carefully dressed Hollywood sets.  With canned peaches going four for a buck!

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  Director Richard Quine’s shot at this sort of sex comedy was A GUIDE FOR THE MARRIED MAN/’67.  Six years naughtier; more dated; less funny.  But one year earlier, his STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET/’60 (Kim Novak; Kirk Douglas) does this suburban scene to a T, but in serious mode.  OR:  *Hope’s’ comedies quickly got progressively worse, including Arnold directed vehicles, even a Road Pic reboot with Bing Crosby couldn't help.  Just once, working again with Lucille Ball in CRITIC’S CHOICE/’63, did he appear to be making an effort.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/03/guide-for-married-man-1967.html    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/critics-choice-1963.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Still living under Eisenhower tax rates in '61 which meant that in spite of Bob’s many bestsellers earning a mill & a quarter, he's left owing about 6.5 hundred thou to Uncle Sam!  No wonder there was far less income disparity after taxes back then.