The Paleface

Bob Hope's Technicolor western spoof The Paleface was one of the comedian's biggest box-office hits. Hope plays Painless Potter, a hopelessly inept dentist who heads west to seek his fortune. Meanwhile, buxom female outlaw Calamity Jane (Jane Russell) is engaged in undercover work on behalf of the ...more

The great civic historian Otto Friedrich, in his study of Los Angeles in the 1940's, made a stunningly accurate analysis on the films of Bob Hope. All of Hope's movies, he wrote, revolve around the same three basic gags: the size of his nose, his innate cowardliness, and his complete ineptitude with women. With the exception of the ski beak, these truths are self-evident in The Paleface. Featuring an extremely attractive Jane Russell as Calamity Jane, the thin plot revolves around an undercover ...more