Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

weezeralfalfa In this entertaining farce, Hope plays "The Lemon Drop Kid": a swindler and horse race tract tout, who nearly always has a box of lemon drops in his pocket. Unfortunately, he convinced the wrong lady to change her betting, not realizing she is the moll of notorious gangster Moose Moran, who demands payment of $10,000., which is what he would have won if she had bet on the horse he so instructed. The remainder of the film chronicles the details of his sidewalk Santa scam to collect the $10,000. within a couple weeks, just prior to Christmas.The Kid has a good-looking blond for a moll: Marylyn Maxwell, as Brainey Baxton. No clue how she earned her nickname: perhaps as sarcasm? As a chorus line dancer for a gangster, and the moll of a perpetually broke small time hood, she doesn't appear to be especially brainy. When she tells her boss, Oxford Charlie, of the financial success of the Kid's Santa scam, he decides to take over the scam, replacing the kid's accomplices with his own men. A group of near destitute "old dolls" are mostly pawns in this scam, as the money is supposed to go toward their upkeep, rather than into the pockets of the scammers. Despite the kid's spending some time in jail, as expected, in the end, things work out well for the kid, his accomplices, and the old dolls. Moran and Charlie are arrested for separate violations. An old doll is reunited with her safe-cracking husband, who just got out of jail and demonstrates his needed skill. The kid is able to pay off his "debt" to Moran and to provide ample funds for the near future of the old dolls. Brainey is finally agreeable to marriage with the Kid, on the supposition that he has reformed his larcenous ways. However, we seriously question such a reformation, from his comments on a set of silverware.There many large gaps in the screenplay, and many contrived coincidences, typical of Hope comedies, but with only a moderate amount of slapstick. Music isn't a big part of the film. However, the Christmas classic "Silver Bells" was composed for this film, and sung by Marylyn and Hope, as well as a chorus. However, Bing Crosby scooped them with the release of a record before the Christmas season, ahead of the release of the film, well after Christmas.

bluerider521 I was a big Bob Hope fan all through the 1940s. In his movies, he always played the hapless loser who lucks his way out of trouble and into a beautiful woman's arms. In this one he plays a con man. Con men can be funny if they are complete incompetents or if they successfully con someone who deserves to be conned. In this movie, only half of each of the above occurs and it is thus less funny and inconsistent.Hope starts out a loser and a craven coward in this one, but at the end of the movie as his schemes work, he becomes smarmy and struts around in an unappealing way. I hated this; it undermined all the previous likable schnook characters Hope had played.I had already read the Runyon story about the Lemon Drop Kid when this film was first released and I was disappointed that the movie contained almost no part of it and only a soupcon of Runyon English could be heard.Maxwell was attractive and sang well. The song "Silver Bells" is a good one. There were many superior character actors in this, but none of them had a chance to really register.I can't think of a Bob Hope move made subsequent to this that I liked. This started a downhill slide for me.

rdfarnham Far too many reviewers of these old movies refuse to put aside their modern desire to be offended and harp on things, like smoking, that were accepted and not even noticed or commented on at the time the film was made. So many actually want to be offended that they miss the main story of the movie. There are only a couple of Bob Hope films that I really like, several that I sort of like and a few that were, to say the least, lousy. This is one of his best and shows how even a low-life cheat, gambler and scam artist can turn his life around. The story is flawless, the acting is superb and the main song, "Silver Bells" is a classic. Watch the film with an unbiased and open mind and you will enjoy it.

telegonus This is a terrific Christmas movie for adults, since it revolves around money and debt. Bob Hope is a racetrack tout who, for too many reasons worth going into here, winds up owing a gangster ten large during the Yuletide season, and comes up with an ingenious way to raise the cash. Hope fits in reasonably well with the general scheme (so to speak) of this Damon Runyon story, and Marilyn Maxwell is gorgeous. In able support are William Frawley, Sid Melton, Ben Welden and a gaggle of other big city types without whom this kind of movie can't work. Thanks in large part to them, it does. Only Lloyd Nolan, as Oxford Charlie, seems wrong for this one. His movie persona was too inflexible for Runyon antics. Maybe Brod Crawford wasn't available. But this is a minor quibble. The movie is a delight.