1h 31min | Comedy, Crime, Music | 8 March 1951
Directors: Sidney Lanfield, Frank Tashlin (uncredited)
Stars: Bob Hope, Marilyn Maxwell, Lloyd Nolan, Jane Darwell.
Len Hendry ... dance director
1st screen credit for Xmas song Silver Bells.
Only 2 other songs in the Soundtracks, but adding the debut of Silver Bells is sufficient to get tagged Music in my book. All 3 are by Livingston and Evans.
This is a Damon Runyon tale. So we get betting on horse races, other illicit gambling, and funny quips.
The '34 antecedent had different character names. William Frawley is in both. (Didn't find that one online; I'd like to see it. Helen Mack is 2nd billed.)
This is pleasant enough, and plays on our sympathies with old ladies at Xmas in the cold. And to bring colorful Runyon characters to life, we get colorful character actors, many whose names I don't know, but they look familiar.
Hope has a new scar on his lip mostly upper (and a bit on the chin) in the left corner of his mouth. No mention of a cause in his trivia.
Hope Enterprises, Paramount, dir. Lanfield, Tashlin; 6
