Casanova's Big Night (1954)

Casanova's Big Night

This movie is towards the end of Bob Hope's "golden age" but it's still an entertaining movie. He plays Pippo who is the assistant to Casanova's tailor. Hope assumes the role of Casanova which leads to many complications that Pippo is not able to handle. Vincent price makes an unbilled appearance as Casanova. Basil Rathbone is great as the real Casanova's valet &, therefore, valet to Pippo's Casanova. It's a unusual comedic role for him that he is suited for; Rathbone's most famous roles being Sherlock Holmes & the Sheriff of Nottingham in the Adventures of Robin Hood.

DVD quality is excellent but there aren't any bonus features. Enjoy this one. By the very late 50's & early 60's Hope would change directions somewhat in his roles which led to a drop off in quality for his movies. January 20, 2008

Plenty of fun, but ...

This movie is LOTS of fun. The pace is great, the lines are delivered well (and some of them are very funny and others are subtlely risque), the gags are wonderful (I love it when Hope dances with the Doge). There's also a wonderful motif having fun with Hope's role - the use of cloth, especially whenever Hope is around, shows up over and over. When Francesca is fighting with the sword, Hope waves a red cape.

My only objection is the ending. There is no ending. Actually, the movie gives two options with respect to Hope's fate - but we never find anything out about Dona Elena, or the creditors back in Parma, or even learn what happened to the real Casanova. Perhaps this is more realistic - I mean, in a romp like this, does the ending really matter? - and yet it does.

For those who wonder, the "real" Casanova was played by Vincent Price (you may recognize the voice but there are a lot of clothes and make up) but he was not credited, as this was the era of McCarthyism. April 28, 2007

Good, pre-"Chrysler Theater" Bob Hope!

This was a movie Bob did while he was still hungry, using his reliable wise-cracking coward character as Pipo Popolino, a tailor's assistant in 18th century Venice. Enamored of a baker played by Joan Fontaine, Pipo masquerades as the legendary Casanova to steal a kiss, when it turns out that Casanova is being pursued by creditors and has skipped Venice completely to escape them. To appease the creditors, everybody Casanova owes money to, Fontaine included, force Pipo to continue his masquerade as the storied rake to get enough money to pay the creditors through marriage. What follows is a crazy quilt of dumb luck and one liners as Pipo actually manages to win a few sword fights and woo a duchess in the bargain.

This is primo, late-period Bob Hope, with an uncredited Vincent Price playing Casanova, Basil Rathbone playing his relunctant valet, Arnold Moss doing his usual Mephistophelian thing as the Doge of Venice amd Audrey Dalton looking just like Linda Darnell in her part as the new object of Pipo-Casanova's affections.

The reception scenes where Pipo challenges a rival for the duchess' affections are sidesplitting, especially when he and Fontaine both have to cross-dress to get in there to begin with. The usual anachronistic Hope oneliners are spewed like apple pits all through the movie and Hope once again proves why Paramount held onto him for something like 25 years! Also why Universal paid Paramount to market some of his movies with a double studio imprint...

The man was a legend!! "Farfle, farfle...pipick!" February 21, 2007

What a fun movie!

I loved this movie! Just so much fun. Swashbuckling goodness in a comedy is always a good thing. It was fun to watch Joan Fontaine with a sword. Sets & costumes were excellent, the acting was very good. Loved Bob's humor, always do. I also recommend these other Bob Hope movies:

The Princess & The Pirate
Monsieur Beaucaire
The Road to Rio February 12, 2007

Typical Bob Hope, but very funny

This was never going to win any Oscars as a high minded production or awards for historical accuracy. But if you like Bob Hope style comedy it's certainly good for a laugh. Don't expect it to be too naughty - most of the humour is either innocent or indirect even by 1950's standards.

I was reminded of this old Bob Hope farce when I watched the version of "Casanova" which came out in 2005 with Heath Ledger and Jeremy Irons.

If you enjoyed the modern version you will almost certainly enjoy the surprisingly similar comedy which Bob Hope and his team had put together more than fifty years previously.

Both stories are set in Venice, and both are based around the same basic joke. This is that Casanova's mere reputation as a great lover is enough to have every woman in Venice throw herself at him, including those who appear to be extremely respectable and virtuous, with precisely one exception - the woman he wants.

Bob Hope plays Pippo Popolino, Casanova's tailor, who is tricked into impersonating the infamous rake (Vincent Price) who is hiding from his creditors. When Pippo Popolino as Casanova arrives in Venice in a gondola, strumming a mandolin as if it were a guitar and singing a love song, it immediately results in hundreds of beautiful women in elegant costume jumping into the canal to try to swim out to his boat.

The fake Casanova has been hired by a rich and elderly dowager to test the fidelity of her son's fiance by seeing whether he can seduce her. An indication of the humour in the film is the dowager's acerbic aside to her son as they leave the meeting,

"To think that I met him - fifty years too late !"

Her son replies in horror "Mother!"

But the son's fiance is the only woman in the story who could meet Casanova and not fall into his arms the instant he expresses an interest. Of course, having accepted the job because he needs the money, at this moment the girl becomes interesting to him in her own right ...

Also shares with the later film some brilliant period costumes, though they don't look as magificent with the cinematic technology of 1954, and an action packed fighting escape from the scaffold after "Casanova" is sentenced to death.

This ridiculous romp was never intended to be taken seriously and has no pretensions to be more than a light-hearted series of jokes. But if you enjoyed either other Bob Hope films, or the 2005 film, or both, this is quite likely to amuse you.
November 18, 2006

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