Louisiana Purchase (1941)

Directed by Irving Cummings
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Universal)

Bob Hope in Technicolor takes a bit to get used to, but once the novelty wears off it ends up being just another thinly plotted vehicle for its leading man. The setting is New Orleans, or rather a gaudy Paramount sound stage that looks like New Orleans, where Hope is being pursued for shady business dealings by a naive Senator played by character actor Victor Moore. Hope plans to blackmail the Senator by catching him in a compromising situation, which is not too difficult in New Orleans. So we've got a lengthy scene in a stereotypical snooty French restaurant where Hope gets Moore drunk and then pays a girl to get friendly with him. In another scene we get a gaudy Mardi Gras parade, which is actually not all that far from the real thing. There are occasional songs, none memorable, a filibuster in the Senate and a happy ending. Hardly the "greatest musical comedy ever filmed".