What a waste of my time!!!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Disappointment for a huge fan!

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Apart from the 'Road' movies, I never realized how many bad films Bob Hope appeared in. I can't imagine what might have possessed him to take on projects like "Call Me Bwana" (1963) or "How to Commit Marriage" (1969), yet here's another one from the Sixties that just tries one's patience and attention span. Hope's one-liners fall short of the humor mark, and there's some real groan inducing dialog written for some of the other principals. How about this one coming from Frankie Avalon's character Kenny Klinger to Swedish date Marti (Rosemarie Frankland), commenting on his fractured romance with JoJo (Tuesday Weld) - "She's a pint, you're a full quart". Good grief.In an apparent attempt to bridge the generational divide and prevent his daughter from 'taking a stab at holy deadlock' (another nifty Avalon line), Bob Holcomb (Hope) offers to represent his company in Sweden and takes JoJo along for the assignment. The plan backfires when Erik Carlson (Jeremy Slate) shows up as Bob's European assistant and part time travel guide. A committed single on the prowl, Erik spends most of his time trying to entice JoJo into pre-marital bliss. The story then relies on some contrived situations and coincidences designed to help JoJo see the error of her ways and back into the arms of her former boyfriend.Had Dina Merrill not been cast here as Bob Holcomb's love interest to add some class to the story I hazard to think what might have come of the whole thing. I'd be interested for example, in what Frankie Avalon makes of his performance here with the hindsight of half a century. Most of his scenes struck me as rather embarrassing, especially the ones where he shimmies and shakes to his own vocals. As if that weren't enough, check out his arrival in Sweden wearing a yellow shirt and pink jacket - sheer 'L-7' all the way.

How to sum up this turkey? Pastel capri pants, the twist, bouffant hair, chewing gum pop music with lyrics like "I'll take Sweden -- ya, ya, ya." California: real locations. Sweden: back projections. Well, maybe that gets the general idea across but we're still left with the plot.It's best described as a clash between cultures. Two, in fact. One is generational. Bob Hope is a morally upright well-to-do executive (or something) whose daughter, the toothsome and toothy Tuesday Weld, is anxious for marriage or at least a taste of the thrills that go with it. Hope sweeps her up with him and they fly to Sweden to escape the plans of Frankie Avalon, a broke biker who wants to settle down with her. Rather than marriage to a kid who sings song like that, her quaint honour should turn to dust, and into ashes all his lust.The other conflict is cultural in the anthropological sense. At the time, pre-marital intercourse was accepted as normal in Sweden, while America was still in the grip of the virginity mystique. Jeremy Slate is the handsome young host of Hope and his daughter in Sweden. Slate wants Weld to give it up before marriage. She's torn -- between two choices, that is. I won't give away the ending and deprive you your gasp of surprise.I -- I'm stumped in an attempt to rationalize the movie's popularity. It isn't that movie like this can't be done as effective comedies. "Take Her, She's Mine," had Jimmy Stewart and Sandra Dee in a similar embarrassment and it was slyly funny. It's that the jokes here, on which the entire enterprise depends, are so unfunny.One example, then I quit. Slate picks up Hope and Weld when they arrive in Sweden but there isn't room enough for all of them plus their luggage in the Volkswagon beetle, so Hope has to stand up with his torso sticking out of the sun roof. A school bus pulls alongside and a little boy squirts Hope with a water pistol. Hope rolls his eyes and remarks, "Don't they have rest stops on that bus?" The end.

Everyone should watch this film, not because it is funny (it isn't), but as a guide to show you what lengths studios & stars will go to cover up a stars physical flaw.Whenever Bob Hope is on screen not wearing a hat, there is an annoying shadow on top of his head. At first I thought this was just a case of a bad director shooting the shadow of a boom mike, but as this is present throughout the whole film, and the shadow is only on Hope's head, I figured out that is was their way of hiding the fact that Bob Hope was balding. I was fascinated by this, so much in fact, that I eventually tuned out the movie (a pretty easy feat), and just starting watching the shadow on Bob Hope's head.

In an effort to keep daughter Tuesday Weld away from bad boy Frankie Avalon, Bob Hope takes a job in Sweden. This is just another of the egregiously unfunny movies Hope was making in the 1960s. The film has one distinguishing feature: it manages to cast Weld and make her completely unappealing! Surprisingly cast to begin with, Weld has little to do but roll her eyes or wince at Hope's unfunny wisecracks. Perhaps Annette Funicello or Deborah Walley would have been a better choice for Weld's role. She's far too intelligent to have us believe she'd be smitten with the empty headed Avalon. The presence of classy Dina Merrill, as Hope's love interest, is a plus even if her Swedish accent is a bit half-hearted. Directed, in the style of the average 60s sitcom, by the undistinguished Fred DeCordova.