Customer Reviews

They Got Me Covered

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a French (currently living in Switzerland), I have never had the opportunity to be that familiar with Bob Hope and his humor, therefore I bought this DVD at random...and I simply hit the ceiling ! First of all, on the technical point of view, the transfer is absolutely exceptional (when you'll watch the trailer, you shall see the difference !) , glorious black and white, great sound with lots of dubbing (Argh !) and subtitles.
The story is very light but amusing, typical of those WWII comedies and the lines of Hope...Mama mia ! you can die for them !
It is so hilarious that I already watched it twice in 3 months
So do not hesitate to purchase it , even if the price ... appears to me to be too excessive ...

THEY GOT ME COVERED is a great wartime Bob Hope movie. Released by RKO, THEY GOT ME COVERED successfully teams Dorothy Lamour and Bob Hope in a Second World War spy romp.

Hope plays a disgraced reporter who is looking for a big story to make amends for his failure to take notice of the German invasion of Russia. Escorted out of the company's New York bureau, he enlists Lamour in the Washington D.C. office to assist him investigate a tip about Axis sabotage plans. Hope is drawn further into the investigation than he plans and continuously calls on Lamour and her friends to bail him out. Hope ultimately succeeds in foiling the spies and regains his reputation.

Until I recently ordered this movie it had been several decades since I last saw this film on television. Previously this movie was only available as part of a Bob Hope box set. Had it not been for the fact that I already owned several of the movies in the set I would have purchased it. I was happy to stumble on a stand-alone copy of the movie.

I am also a big fan of the Hope and Crosby ROAD pictures. After watching THEY GOT ME COVERED and MY FAVORITE BRUNETTE I quickly realized that the real comic talent in the films of that decade was Bob Hope. It is no wonder that for a while he was one of the highest paid stars in Hollywood.

THEY GOT ME COVERED is a product of its era. Expect the usual stereo-typical villainous German, Italian and Japanese spies. No one back then could have anticipated the longevity of comedy films and political correctness had not yet been coined. Buy the DVD, watch the film and laugh.

MGM presents "THEY GOT ME COVERED" (1943) (95 min/B&W) -- Starring Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Lenore Aubert, Otto Preminger, Eduardo Ciannelli, Marlon Martin & Donald Meek

Directed by David Butler

Robert Kittredge (Bob Hope) is the Moscow correspondent for a major American news service, who is fired when he neglects to file a report about Hitler's invasion of Russia. Hoping to get back in the good graces of his boss Norman Mason (Donald MacBride), Kittredge steals another reporter's story about a Nazi spy ring operating in New York.

An excellent Bob Hope vehicle with Otto Preminger good fun as the head Nazi, Otto Fauscheim. This was Hope first starring role for MGM - he followed up a year later with The Princess and the Pirate (also directed by David Butler).

Bob Hope in his prime and the one-liners provided for him here are classics. The often underrated Miss Lamour shines as a Lois Lane-type reporter. She and Hope have fabulous chemistry together and their comic timing as a team is impeccable. David Butler again proves he was one of Hollywood classic era's most capable and underrated directors. Wisely, they allow the villains to play it straight to give this mostly light film a serious(but not too much so) undertone which makes it seem edgier and thus more effective as a comedy thriller.

Best scene is when Hope and Donald Meek playing an addled old caretaker who believes the Civil War is still going on. The two of them reprise a couple of old burlesque routines in Abbott and Costello style.

Special footnote: -- If you enjoyed this film, check out my review on My Favorite Blonde My Favorite Blonde [VHS]

BIOS:
1. David Butler (Director)
Date of Birth: 17 December 1894 - San Francisco, California
Date of Death: 14 June 1979 - Arcadia, California

2. Bob Hope (aka: Leslie Townes Hope)
Date of Birth: 29 May 1903 - Eltham, London, England, UK
Date of Death: 27 July 2003 - Toluca Lake, California

3. Dorothy Lamour [aka: Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton]
Date of Birth: 10 December 1914 - New Orleans, Louisiana
Date of Death: 22 September 1996 - Los Angeles, California

Mr. Jim's Ratings:
Quality of Picture & Sound: 5 Stars
Performance: 5 Stars
Story & Screenplay: 5 Stars
Overall: 5 Stars [Original Music, Cinematography & Film Editing]

Total Time: 95 min on DVD/VHS ~ MGM ~ (September 23, 1997)

I suppose the enormous reputation and popularity which Bob Hope achieved with the American people has already faded and will continue to do so. Thus it is with most "Icons" who have not established a cult identity. Nonetheless, for about a half-century, no entertainer was "bigger" than Hope over-all, although the occasional challenger, a Jackie Gleason or Marily Monroe, might share that eminence.
This is not among the best of his films, but it is characteristic of how well he sells his wares. Brash, highly verbal, adaptable to physical comedy, good-looking enough to make it credible that he should get the girl, but, with a face that doesn't meet the Robert Taylor-Tyrone Power standard of male beauty....by a long shot. The script for his mystery-thriller-adventure films is followed in this relatively early one (World War 2 period) as does the expression of some of his central characteristics as a comedian, aggressive women chasing, bumbling, defeated, victorious, almost by accident, cowardly but brave when he has to be. It was a winning combination in all his media of choice.
His co-star, as often was the case, was the lovely, talented Dorothy Lamour, one of his co-partners on the highly successful Road pictures; they were supported by an assortment of character actors, led by Otto Preminger, soon to become a leading director of films, amd Eduardo Cianelli, an actor of great skill (see his superb performance in the mid-thirties production of Winterset) who made his living for many years as a tough gangster,although he did a fine job,many years later,as Sophia Loren's father,in the Cary Grant comedy.Houseboat.
So, not a first rate comedy, but quite a good one, pretty sure to give you an hour and a half of pleasure.

If you are a serious Bob Hope collector, you will want to add this one A.S.A.P.

I was born in 1952, but would come home from gradeschool to find 1940's movies being played on the local TV station. I fell in love with the strange world of the 1940's, which was so very different from the late 50's.

This movie is a delightful romp, as Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamore fight Nazi terrorists and spies in Washington DC who are planning to attack American cities enmass, poisoning the water, blowing up power stations, the type of thing the Bush Administration is always trying to scare us about. I suppose this shows my political bias, but at one point in the movie, a character says that she will no longer work with the Nazi's since she values the freedom in this country. My immediate thought that was with the Patriot Acts 1 and 2, it is from INTERNAL sources that we now have to worry about our freedom, whereas in the 1940's it was the external enemy that wanted to turn us into a police state.

Anyway, this movie is delightful in giving a slice of the popular culture at that time, the wonderful tailored clothes, bizarre women's hair styles, the GI Joe patriotism, and most importantly the laughs which haven't aged a day since 1942, all the way up to the hilarious conclusion when members of all branches of the military join Bob and Dorothy in saving the USA!

If you enjoy WW2 memorabilia, this movie may be a fun experience for you. If you are a baby boomer like me who was raised on such black/white movies on TV after school, it will be a nostalgic look back wards. This is the REAL THING, not some modern movie made to re-enact the WW2 days. In a wierd sense, this is a very sweet movie when Bob and Dorothy were young and vital, and the world was in great danger, and yet we all had time to laugh.