Bachelor in Paradise

Other than Bob Hope's wisecracks (which aren't all that funny), this movie is a lost cause. It involves a writer of "Bachelor" books, forced to live in a suburban, fifties community because his accountant ran off with his fortune. He has come to study the natives and then write about them. In the process he falls in love with Lana Turner. The screenplay is insipid, the acting stiff and bloodless, there is utterly no charm. The best characters in the book are two little kids who only appear for about three minutes. This is the stuff that was put in the theaters in the sixties. It titillates but the censors had their bony fingers on the button at every turn. The result a tiresome, endless non-comedy that bores everyone. Watch the ridiculous courtroom scene at the end if you want an example of the worst of cinema.

As some people who already posted reviews mentioned, the greatest value to me about this movie is being able to see a slice of what it was like in CA during the late 50s and early 60s. I love this particular era, so I guess I am biased. I also enjoy listening to the music that's heard throughout the movie, especially the slower-paced cool jazz-like tunes with xylophones. It's too silly to be taken seriously but if you like documentaries about American society, this film is very interesting and won't disappoint. I'm pretty sure that some neighborhoods like this in CA had bad neighbors and even dangerous ones, as hard to believe as that may be. A good example is when bikers during this period would buy homes in fairly new conservative neighborhoods like the ones depicted in this film. All kinds of sordid behavior occurred, and the neighbors had to put up with it for some time until police would finally kick them out. That and other undesirable reality was swept under the rug and hardly ever reported, but it did happen and it was very scandalous and shocking at that time-more than today. Not everything was as happy during this era as it seems in this film, but life was slower and there were fewer people in CA. The neighborhoods in this film are located in Panorama City and Woodland Hills, still very nice neighborhoods today. They're both located in San Fernando Valley, an area that is still in the higher end of the real estate market. Unfortunately, most neighborhoods that looked like this at that time have been transformed to ugly ghettos or concrete jungles with endless and boring strip malls. Even if the neighborhoods and life in the film seem to be exaggerated, it's still a contrast to today's life in CA. I'd rather live in that era than in the one today. There's a lot of negative that can be listed about that era, but there's also a lot of positive. People were held to higher standards and most people dressed a lot better than they do today. Even the colors seemed to be nicer, not just in the clothing that people wore but in the colors they chose for their cars. I also notice the artistic quality of the cursive shapes of the letters in marquees, advertisements and neon signs. The way buildings look today and their marquees look unappealing, very boring and very ugly. Of course, I'm biased because I have always liked almost everything about the particular era depicted in the film. It was like the beginning of the end of a fantasy that I unfortunately didn't get to experience because I was born in the the mid 60s. I think it was the apex of ideal happiness in CA. But I still remember some things about the late 60s that were distinct from the 70s and the ensuing decades. Unfortunately and ironically, life improved in many ways, it also degenerated after the early 60s; and that's why I think many people like me yearn for that era.

This flick is sixties suburbia to pastel perfection - an "early Disneyland" middle-class wet dream. Frankly, I've never understood Bob Hope as a sex-comedy leading man, but his later films must have made money, or they wouldn't have kept churning them out. Lana Turner is coiffed to within an inch of her life, but she honestly looks OLDER than her forty years in 1961. Watch this for the "California coral" tract homes, the fab supermarket and the atomic drive-in we all wish still existed. However, don't expect anything more than the usual, lame Hope shtick. Of course, Agnes Moorehead is priceless in her cameo......if only she had played a larger role.

I watch this every time it's on cable, mainly because it is a graphic memento of "Camelot" - a time in America of sheer optimism and middle class power. This movie revels in the 60s suburban life style and the fact even the middle class was shrugging off stuffy Victorian sexuality. But within a setting of Bob Hope's dry humor, lots of hot 60s women, the BIG cars, the ranch style canyon subdivision houses - and the consumptive 60s lifestyle. Gotta love it on nostalgia value alone but as one of the better Hope 60s comedies, peppered with his slick double entendre one-liners bounced off a bevy of Hollywood hotties, it's a winner as well.

A best-selling author with I.R.S. problems moves into California's suburbia sect under an alias. Bob Hope doesn't seem to like playing opposite women very much. He just can't wait for them to stop talking so he can one-up them with his banter. Hope has an erratic sense of rhythm which pushes some lines too far and some not far enough. Still, "Bachelor" needs his hamminess to work because Lana Turner is spotty and uncomfortable as the suburban queen he falls for (even her surprise dance in a Hawaiian restaurant feels forced, though that's her best moment). Paula Prentiss is around as Bob's neighbor, and she amuses with her deep, off-center voice and unpredictable manner, but Jim Hutton as her husband is a complete dullard. I like this era for film comedies: the pastel colors, the plush interiors, and of course Henry Mancini's tinkly background score (always reassuring), but this movie just doesn't deliver many laughs, and the legal stuff in the second-half is positively desperate. ** from ****

This is the most sophisticated of the later Bob Hope comedies, which may seem like faint praise. But "Bachelor in Paradise" is a mildly enjoyable satire of suburban mores in the late 50's-early 60's. Hope is well cast as author A. J. Niles, who is doing undercover research in an upscale tract community for his book on sex in suburbia. The husbands mistakenly think that Hope is romancing their wives while they're away at work, and soon all hell breaks loose. The movie starts smartly before degenerating into a more typical sex farce. But there are rewards to be had along the way: Lana Turner, as Hope's real love interest, looks especially glamorous; Paula Prentiss shows her marvelous comedic flair in a supporting role; the 60's suburban sets are terrific; Agnes Moorehead does a funny cameo as a flaming red-headed judge who makes Judy seem demure; and there's a nice Henry Mancini score -- especially the catchy title tune (which made Ann-Margret a star when she sang it at the Oscars). This is defnitely not a first rate comedy, but it is now fun to watch as a period piece. Unfortunately, the video released by MGM wreaks havoc with the Cinemascope compositions. Letterboxing was definitely called for, or at least some judicious panning-and-scanning.

I like Bob Hope a lot better than I like Doris Day. This is a Doris-Day style 60s sex comedy, except that the central character's a man with better lines. Unusually, Bob Hope is a pretty successful lover, but otherwise he plays the normal Bob Hope character in the normal way. It's mostly a gently enjoyable piece of innocent fluff, played pretty well on the whole. Watch out for a lovely cameo by Agnes Moorehead as the judge. But for 1961, this was a pretty progressive film. The strong characters are the women, and their story is of fighting the stultifying boredom of housewifery and being respected as people. Nothing spectacular, but carried out competently. If you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you like.

Bob Hope plays a worldly writer whose specialty is the sexual mores of European women. He is called back to the U.S. from his home on the French Riviera after his business manager takes off with his money, leaving him with back taxes to pay. His editor (played by the delightfully droll John McGiver) assigns him to write a book about the sexual mores of American suburbanites and places him in a tract house in a new Southern California subdivision. There, Hope meets the glamorous Realtor Lana Turner, who has given up on men, and the wacky pre-feminist wives and mothers who are his neighbors. Romance and troubles follow to a predictable ending. This is escapist humor at its purest, produced at a time when Americans faced a world seemingly on the brink of nuclear war. Filmed on location, it also provides a fascinating look at the culture of the time, making you wish you were living then amid the Atomic Age architecture. Dig those compact tract homes painted in California coral and aqua, that far-out supermarket with the giant windows in front, that snappy diner with the carhops, that chic barbecue restaurant where they serve shrimp cocktails, ribs and gibsons al fresco! (I wish I knew where it was filmed). The first hour is great, with quirky comic turns by Paula Prentiss as the excitable young housewife next door, Janis Paige as the sexy soon-to-be divorcée on the make and Reta Shaw as the overbearing neighborhood snoop. Unfortunately, the second half drags a bit as the farce grows thin, Hope grows more grating and most of the action moves inside to studio sets. Still, it's a nice trip back to 1961.

source: Bachelor in Paradise

Trailer—Bachelor in Paradise