Where There's Life

One of my recent DVD purchases was this Bob Hope box set that's actually two box sets repackaged together and sold at a very low price. Recently I watched one of the movies on the set, Where There's Life.

Hubertus II is the King of Barovia, a country somewhere in Europe that's just come out of World War II and is about to have its first free elections following the war. However, there are people who don't want such a liberalization, notably a shady cabal calling itself Mordia. So one of their members shoots the King, who is severely wounded and likely to die.

The problem is that the King has no heir. Well, actually, he does, but there's no legitimate heir, which really should be a problem too, but the royalists have to make do with the hand they've been dealt. When Humbertus was young, he spent some time in America and had a fling with a woman that resulted in an illegitimate son, Michael Valentine. He's now an adult, played by Bob Hope, and working as an overnight DJ in New York. All the Barovian government has to do is go to New York, and convince Michael to take the job as King.

Now, there's the obvious question of why Michael would take the job in the first place since he's probably never been out of the US, and doesn't speak whatever language they speak there (although to be fair, that didn't stop the Bernadottes from becoming the royal family of Sweden as we saw in Désirée). On top of that, Michael is engaged to be married to Hazel O'Brien (Vera Marshe), the sister of New York cop Victor (William Bendix).

The Barovian government sends over General Grimovitch (Signe Hasso) and her entourage to find Michael and bring him back to Barovia. Michael doesn't realize what's going on at first. But there are people who do, notably the Mordia. If they tried to kill Hubertus, it's fairly logical to expect them to try to kill any heir too, especially an American heir who wouldn't be predisposed to an anti-democratic government. So they try to kill Michael.

For Michael's part, he's unable to convince anybody of what's happening to him especially as more outrageous coincidences pile up one on top of the next. Hazel despairs that Michael will never marry her, and Victor is practically going to drag him to the altar. Worse is that the General and Michael seem to start falling in love with each other.

Where There's Life is a pleasant enough time-passer, a programmer that at it's minimal length (75 minutes) is chock full of plot holes if you think too much rather than try to be amused by Bob Hope. I liked it just enough to give an endorsement as long as you know you're not looking for a prestige picture. It's not as good as something like The Cat and the Canary or My Favorite Blonde, but fans of Bob Hope will probably like it.

As for the box set, it's well executed for the price, with each case having the hinged spindles with one spindle per disc. Each disc has multiple movies on it (21 movies on 9 discs), with the exception of one final disc that has a PBS American Masters special on Hope. Even if you don't care for Where There's Life, you'll probably find enough in the box set that makes it worth the price (especially because the second half of the box set has four of the Road movies with Bing Crosby).