A truly delightful Bob Hope comedy.
In this film Bob Hope plays The Lemon Drop Kid, a swindler, who hangs around the horse tracks touting fake tips to make money. This gets him into a situation where he needs to pay a gangster (Fred Clark) $10,000 by Christmas Eve, or else he may not live to see New Years. He decides to dress himself up as a street corner Santa Claus in order to make the money. When this winds him up in trouble with the law, he comes up with an idea of how to make the money. He will pretend to operate an old folks home from old ladies who don't have a place to go to, yet it is just a scheme to get the $10,000.
Perfect for a movie that takes place around the Christmas season, this film mixes the typical Bob Hope humor with a good helping of sentimentality. The movie does a truly great job at this, and the result is a film that is both funny and heartwarming. What makes this mixture work so well is that both the comedy and the sentimentality come directly from the characters and the story. No matter how wacky or silly any of the gags get, each of them has a purpose and helps move the story forward. While most of the gags revolve around Bob Hope's one-liners (most of which are truly funny), there are also some wonderful sight gags thrown in for good measure. The scene where the controls for the bed get out of control is truly hilarious. A scene involving a mannequin is also as funny as anything ever put in a Bob Hope picture. The sentimentality is just as well done here. When it comes to Christmas time movies, we all have a special fondness for a warm-hearted story about a cynical person coming into contact the spirit of Christmas (this is why there are so many film adaptions of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol) and this movie has this in spades. This is a film that always has its heart in the right place and there are moments (especially towards the last act) that are surprisingly quite emotional for a Bob Hope comedy. This movie also has one of the best realized romances in any of the Bob Hope films. You really believe the relationship between these two characters and his girlfriend is a fully realized character instead of just a love interest for the main star.
As much as this is a Bob Hope movie, the supporting cast is also fantastic here. William Frawley is often just as funny as Bob Hope in his scenes. Marlyn Maxwell as the Kid's girlfriend is also great. Not only is she given a meatier role than most of the love interests in Bob Hope pictures, but she also shines with her great musical numbers. However, the real heart of the film comes from the great Jane Darwell (who classic movie fans will know for playing Ma Joad in John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath (1940) among many other great film performances). She puts just as much heart into this comedy as she did into her more critically acclaimed roles. Because of this she is a major reason why the sentimentality in this film works so well. Even wrestler Tor Johnson (most famous for his role in the worst movie ever made, Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957)), gets some good moments here.
Probably this film's greatest legacy today is that it brought us a very well-known Christmas song, Silver Bells. This song was the brainchild of the songwriting team Jay Livingston and Ray Evans (who wrote all of the songs for this film). Paramount was not happy with some of their recent output and if the two did not come up with a hit song soon, their contract would lapse. They were at first disheartened when they were assigned to write a Christmas song. They had no ideas for any Christmas songs and didn't feel like they could really prove themselves with one. Then one of them noticed a tinkly bell on their desk. This gave them an idea and the wrote, "Tinkle bells, tinkle bells. It's Christmas time in the city." The lyrics would be changed to Silver Bells when Livingston's wife made them aware that tinkle could also mean to urinate. The song was originally going to not be given special attention in the movie. Instead it was just going to have the characters standing in a room singing. However it was noticed (especially by Bob Hope) that there was something special about this song and it was given a more visually interesting treatment with The Kid and his girlfriend walking down a city street at Christmas time. Though the song was written for this movie, it was heard by the general public before the film's release because Bing Crosby and Carol Richard's recording of the song was released before the movie. Bob Hope would later making singing this song an annual tradition on his Christmas TV Specials.
This movie was based off of a story by Damon Runyon, also called The Lemon Drop Kid. A film of the same name based off this story had previously been released in 1934. William Frawley was in the casts of both that film and this movie. Bob Hope had previously starred in another Damon Runyon adaption with Sorrowful Jones (1949).
The credited director for this movie was Sidney Lanfield, who had previously directed Hope in such films as the previously mentioned Sorrowful Jones, My Favorite Blonde (1942), Let's Face It (1943) and Where There's Life (1947). However Hope was very unhappy with his work on this picture and wanted a new director. This director was Frank Tashlin, who ended up directing about a 3rd of this film. Though Tashlin had directed many cartoon shorts (especially Looney Tunes cartoons) this was his first real job directed a live action feature. Tashlin would go on to direct one of the best Bob Hope movies with Son of Paleface (1952).
The Lemon Drop Kid is a great underrated Christmas classic.
Resources Used
https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/81186/the-lemon-drop-kid#articles-reviews?articleId=453708
https://holidappy.com/holidays/History-of-Christmas-Carols-Silver-Bells
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043733/?ref_=nm_flmg_t_45_dr
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