MartinHafer Bob Hope is oddly cast as the playboy writer, Adam Niles. He has been living in France for many years...having a great time with the ladies and writing books about love, sex and romance. But when he learns he owes the IRS $600,000, he's got to change his wild ways and economize while he works on his next book. So, instead of a gay life in Paris, he's forced to move to suburbia where he is an oddity indeed. It seems that in the planned community of Paradise he's the only bachelor. This film is very much like most of Hope's later films. Instead of doing, he spends the story throwing out one liners--mostly very sexist and unfunny ones. In many ways, it's like he's making a guest appearance in the films instead of being the more active funny many of his earlier film career. It isn't helped by having Lana Turner playing his straight man, so to speak as this just isn't Turner's forte. Nor does it help that the 58 year-old Hope is hopelessly miscast as a man who is like catnip! Because of this, it's definitely a movie more for his die-hard fans than the casual viewer. Now am I saying this is a bad film? No. It's pleasant and enjoyable at times and is a decent time-passer.

Applause Meter Bob Hope is AJ Niles, a writer notorious for having penned controversial books on the male/female relationship, and now finds himself exiled to Paradise, that being the name of the California suburban subdivision where he takes refuge. The character of Niles allows Hope full license to play out his comedic persona at its most familiar---the snide, self-satisfied deliveryman of one-liners meant to wither his target. Yes, this is Bob, the iconic performer of the Eisenhower 1950s, an entertainer whose shtick everyone in America was comfortable with. Even when buffoonery is called for, Hope projects arrogance and swagger; a case of the private man intruding into the public image. Lana Turner is Rosemary Howard the real estate agent who rents the house to Niles setting in motion a train of events that disrupt the whole community. Niles just can't help himself, anonymity is against his nature; he becomes the village Yentl, the meddling, intrusive busybody who dislodges the neighborhood's equilibrium and subsequently the lives of its residents. Lana Turner was once a cute, ingénue with acting potential until Hollywood manufactured her into a "glamour goddess." In this movie at age 40, Turner was well established as a self- conscious actress, plaster cast-stiff, without any real depth or emotive spontaneity in her performance. Every mannerism, ever walk is calculated for correct poise and posture. The make-up artists and hair dressers only accentuated this frozen appearance with painfully perfect application of cosmetics and a hair-do that could only be dislodged by a tsunami. There's not much to say about the storyline itself. Disgruntled with this "known libertine and seducer," the husbands sign a petition to evict the Casanova Niles from his home and oust him from the community. The females, excepting a few puritanical matrons, protest this and rally in his defense. Niles was only trying to help them make their marriages more exciting; he was a public servant, a benevolent family counselor. That tall pair of actors Paula Prentiss and Jim Hutton are once again teamed as a romantic couple, here a married one, who are the focus of Nile's ministrations. The movie is dated, a cultural commentary of the era. Unless you're a big fan of Bob Hope or are just interested in opening a time capsule from a world long buried, pass this one by. For being a historical curio, I give it a "3."

morris Hammond I watch this every time it's on cable, mainly because it is a graphic memento of "Camelot" - a time in America of sheer optimism and middle class power. This movie revels in the 60s suburban life style and the fact even the middle class was shrugging off stuffy Victorian sexuality. But within a setting of Bob Hope's dry humor, lots of hot 60s women, the BIG cars, the ranch style canyon subdivision houses - and the consumptive 60s lifestyle. Gotta love it on nostalgia value alone but as one of the better Hope 60s comedies, peppered with his slick double entendre one-liners bounced off a bevy of Hollywood hotties, it's a winner as well.

dsewizzrd-1 Bob Hope (and a stunt double used in kissing scenes !) is a writer of dirty books who is caught out by the IRS and goes to write a book about suburban America in a ticky tacky housing estate in California called Paradise Village.The normal pratfalls occur, including with a husband with a Morris Minor (?) and one of those drive in restaurants like in "American Graffitti".The stars drive around in swoopy convertibles provided by Chrysler, with the witless suburbanites driving around in podgy, old fashioned Chevrolets and sidevalve Fords. Product placement – TWA airlines.