Cinema: Hope Pops for Peace

A Global Affair. As an obscure U.N. employee who has been nursing a closetful of computers, Bob Hope blinks in dismay at his new assignment: the care and feeding of a blonde baby girl, abandoned in the U.N. lobby. “You’ve got the wrong man,” burbles Bob. “I didn’t even goto the Christmas party.” Nevertheless he takes the tyke home to his bachelor flat, powders her with confectioners’ sugar, fastens her diapers with Scotch tape, and warms her milk in an empty fifth. Meanwhile, back at U Thant’s East River headquarters, an international incident begins to boil. Seems all 111 member nations want to claim the foundling for their very own and are eager to give it the best of all possible homelands.

From that none too Hopeful beginning, the comedy wheezes toward a tired finish, with gags that might have been written by a UNESCO pamphleteer. Sometimes the movie simply stops to preach. “This baby feels hunger and cold and loneliness, just like you and me,” says Bob. “I can’t see anything funny about this situation.” And there’s the rub. Or the rash. To help Hope out in the pinches, a group of seductresses billed as The Global Girls troops through: Yvonne De Carlo as a Spanish floozy whose secret weapon is flamenco; Lilo Pulver as a brusque, weepy vodkaholic making a case for the U.S.S.R.; Miiko Taka as an ah-so Geisha who offers back rubs and hot saki; and Elga Andersen as a French fille de joie who waives her diplomatic immunity in pajama tops. True love is the Belgian lass (Michele Mercier), a high-minded guide from the Low Countries. Obviously, the movie makes a negligible contribution to world amity and understanding, despite such gimmicks as a walk-on role by U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson. Stooped, sage and sober, the ambassador looks like a man who knows the U.N. will survive even this sad Affair.