Cinema: Ho-Ho-Ho-Hum

Bachelor in Paradise (M-G-M). He: “Isn’t it a bit early for a cocktail?” She: “Early! It’s April.” That’s what the script says, but it is plainly later than Bob Hope (who admits he is 57) and Lana Turner (who claims she is 40) like to think. In Paradise they are cast as a couple of gay young things in their middle 303, but the moving finger has inexorably written lines that contradict the ones they have to say. Their first fine rapture actually suggests a desperate last fling, their romantic moments sometimes seem mildly necromantic. The script, in any case, is guaranteed to make actors age rapidly. Almost every line in the picture (“I call this cocktail a bikini—there’s not much to it but it hits the right spots”) might serve as an epitaph for laughter. As for the plot—the usual prefab fable about life in a California housing project—it is certain to make audiences respond with a ho-ho-ho-hum. Hope, a bestselling spicy storyteller, undertakes to investigate the sexual habits of the suburban female. Turner, a typical suburban female, gives aid and comfort. At the fade, Hope has his book, Turner has her man, and the customer has a question: Is this tripe necessary?