Tonight's movie was "The Lemon Drop Kid" (1951), starring none other than Bob Hope as the title character, a scammer who makes his living at the track, charging people for "tips" on the horse races. It would not have occurred to me to seek out a Bob Hope film; not because he isn't funny, talented, legendary, etc., but just because he was around for so long (he lived to be 100) and he was so famous, that he was kind of ubiquitous. One someone has reached Legendary Status, you tend to take them for granted. Plus, as a child I was used to seeing him as the host of the Academy Awards. He was the best host the Oscars have ever had, so I thought of him that way, and as a stand-up comedian rather than a comedic actor. Finally, his omnipresence in the 60s as more-or-less an elder statesman of comedy made him seem antiquated. I'm not a huge fan of comedy to begin with, but the funny stuff I grew up on was all TV Sit-Coms like "Gilligan's Island" and "F-Troop" and "Green Acres". All were brand new shows on television at the time, with brand new casts of comedians.
They would show Bob Hope's "Road" movies on TV when I was 7 or 8, and his fast talking style was very slick to a little kid, but he just seemed like he was from another era - like he was the epitome of that other, older era.
Of course, you never know what will happen in life, and so here I am 50 years down the road and now I love that other era, in fact most of the movies I watch come from that time, the 1930s through the late 50s , i.e. The Golden Era.
I reserved "The Lemon Drop Kid" at the Libe because it came up in a recent Google search. I was looking for Christmas movies I haven't seen, and "Lemon Drop" came back in a link listing "15 Black & White Classic Christmas Movies". Perfect. I checked the list and found four films I hadn't seen.
I'm not overly interested in modern Christmas films because they don't have the sentimentality that the classics of the Golden Era possess. I don't want "real life" included in my Christmas films, I want fantasy and idealism, with a hint of Depression-era graft and mean-spirited Republican Scroogity.
I think you know what I am getting at. In contrast, last year I tried to watch "A Christmas Story" from 1983. It is considered a classic by critics and fans alike. I had never seen it and was wondering what all the hubub was about.
I only made it through the first 20 minutes or so.
There was not only no sentiment, but the movie seemed to be moving in the opposite direction, towards irony, snottiness and a sort of mean-spirited "hip" cuteness, as if the filmmakers were saying, "Christmas sucks".....but isn't it kind of sweet anyway.
Screw that. I turned "A Christmas Story" off, twenty minutes in. It sucked, and it is not a classic but a really bad movie.
You have to have that "Miracle On 42nd Street" department store Santa sentimentality to have a classic Christmas movie, and to my surprise, Bob Hope and "The Lemon Drop Kid" provided the needed ingredients.
Briefly, Hope - the horse race gambler - is in debt to a big league hood for Ten Grand, a fortune in those days. The hoodlum gives Hope until Christmas Eve to pay him back, or else.
Here is where the comedic skills of Bob Hope come in, and his skills were formidable.
I was surprised to discover that his fast talking, wise cracking style still holds up today and was ahead of it's time.
In the story, he owes the hoodlum ten grand, and he is desperate, so he sets up a grand scheme in which he will use the hoodlum's large gambling house against him. While the hoodlum in is Florida, Hope turns his mansion into a Home For Old Dolls (indigent old ladies). The scheme is elaborate, and it fits into the category of The Era Of Great Screenwriting, where multiple stories are told in fine layers, during the course of a 90 minute film. I can't tell you much more, except that the Bob Hope character is so ruthless that he is using his Home For Old Dolls as a charity, so that he can make at least ten thousand bucks to pay back the mobster he had cheated at the horse track.
And after he pays his debt, he doesn't care what becomes of the old ladies after his scam is exposed. is he really willing to put them on the street?
The more you watch films from the Golden Era, the more you are able to appreciate the work that went into the scripts, in which multiple levels of story are launched. These storylines are introduced by dialogue rather than action (the action follows), but what is important to note is that all of the actions and words of the actors are seamless in introducing the next thread in the plot.
Things happen so fast in a comedic farce from this era, that you have to be on your toes to follow every development.
Imagine how "on their toes" the actors had to be!
Well anyway, I regained my childhood respect for Bob Hope, who is so fast and slick that few comedians could keep up ( and maybe no one), and in "The Lemon Drop Kid" he and the cast delivered a Christmas Movie with all the necessary sentiment and more - a hard criminal edge that is both "idealistically cynical", because you know that the criminals are gonna go straight, and is also traditionally sentimental as far as the Christmas Season is concerned because Hope is involved in a romance with the beautiful Marilyn Maxwell, a singer connected to a rival Mob Boss.
I hope I haven't been jabbering away and that my synopsis made even marginal sense.
But man, was this ever a great Christmas movie! Bob Hope shines in the lead role, and you can easily see how he influenced scores of future comedians. The key to his characters is that they are well dressed, in suits, but they are also usually entirely amoral. And that contrast, between Hope's slick-suited, good-guy eye movements, and the sociopathic dialogue that is coming out of his mouth in rapid fire, is what makes him so funny. He looks so straight, so classy, and yet he talks like a total psycho.
But in a slick, harmless way. That's Bob Hope, the good looking, Ski-Nosed guy in a fancy suit, who will say just about anything for a laugh, and who was talking out the side of his mouth before Robin Williams was even born. And, like Williams, Bob Hope will say anything.
Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Lemon Drop Kid", a highly recommended classic Christmas Movie shot in seasonal black and white, with a plot that unravels in spectacular fashion. /////
I would like to also recommend very quickly the new Stephen King book called "Elevation". It's really a short story, rather than one of his giant novels, and it is presented in a small book format, but you can read it in three or four days (maybe less) and it is beautiful and very uplifting.
See you in the morning. Big Love of course. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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