MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE

US, 1946, 93 minutes, Black and white.
Bob Hope, Joan Caulfield, Patric Knowles, Marjorie Reynolds, Cecil Kellaway, Joseph Schildkraut, Hillary Brooke, Reginald Owen, Constance Collier.
Directed by George Marshall.

Monsieur Beaucaire is an adaptation of a Booth Tarkington novel about melodrama and intrigue at the court of Louis XV. It had been a vehicle for Valentino in the twenties. However, the adaptation is quite complete for a Bob Hope comedy role. He is his usual forties self with wise-cracks, farcical situations. Joan Caulfield is an attractive and vigorous heroine. The film also parodies the styles of the popular costume melodramas of the time. Entertaining Hope material.

1. An entertaining Bob Hope comedy? Period, farce?

2. The style of the Bob Hope comedies in the forties? His personality and style, wisecracks, farcical situations, music, romance? An adaptation of a popular novel (and a previous Valentino vehicle)?

3. Black and white photography, 17th century styles? Music?

4. The adaptation of a more serious swashbuckling plot for farce? Mistaken identities, the Duke and the substitution of the barber? The maid-in-waiting? The King and the Queen of France? politics with Spain? Characterizations of royalty, the aristocracy, the Duke, the villainous advisors at court, the barber and Mimi?

5. The barber an portrayed by Bob Hope - the particular style of Bob Hope's character? Witty, humorous, awkward, not a hero but emerging as a hero - and with the leading lady? (Cowardly and amorous style of Bob Hope?)

6. Mimi as the flirtatious serving maid and her style?

7. The sketching in of the personalities at the court and the farcical treatment of mistaken identities, political intrigue, culminating and climactic sword fights?

7. The humour of the crises of identity and politics?

8. What insight into history, the humorous side of serious politicking and intrigue via farce?