My Favorite Brunette

Bob Hope is a harried baby photographer who wants to be a private detective in this 1947 follow-up to the 1942 spy spoof My Favorite Blonde. Hope plays Ronnie Jackson, a prisoner on death row who is relating the story of how he ended up there, and Dorothy Lamour is heiress Carlotta Montay, who mistakes Ronnie for a real shamus and hires him to find her kidnapped uncle. Ronnie uncovers a conspiracy and follows the clues to a sanitarium where he is tossed into a padded room by the gangsters. Peter Lorre costars as a sinister henchman who is constantly lurking around Carlotta, and Lon Chaney Jr. is an innocent asylum patient who has been fooled into doing the conspirators' dirty work. It's a lightweight but funny spoof of murder mysteries and detective movies with Hope as the wisecracking coward who nervously rises to the occasion despite being utterly outmatched in the battle of wits with the bad guys. Alan Ladd has an uncredited cameo as the real private eye (a clever sight gag that may not register with modern audiences but will delight fans of classic movies), and Hope's frequent costar Bing Crosby has a hilarious cameo at the end of the film. My Favorite Brunette fell into the public domain decades ago and is widely available on inferior editions, but this newly remastered edition looks and sounds superb and is the best currently available. A strong optional purchase. (S. Axmaker)