the audience applauded

So much average

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

One of Bob Hope's last big-budget studio productions is an elaborate yet rather patchy costumer in Technicolor, with the star only impersonating the famed Venetian lothario (he's played, briefly, by an uncredited Vincent Price!). The film, in fact, has a truly imposing supporting cast (Joan Fontaine, Basil Rathbone, Hugh Marlowe, John Carradine, John Hoyt, Lon Chaney Jr., Raymond Burr and Paul Cavanaugh among others) which, however, doesn't really allow any of them to shine – while embarrassing somewhat Fontaine (an unlikely comedienne) and Rathbone (in the equally undignified role of Casanova's long-suffering valet); for the record, horror icon Chaney appears in a bit as a crazed prisoner.The plot has tailor's assistant Hope offering to replace the fleeing and debt-ridden Casanova; he's subsequently involved in a scheme wherein a lady is to be compromised – and in which the warmongering Doge of Venice (with the aid of advisers Carradine and Burr, who are naturally just as unscrupulous) sees an opportunity to start a war with a neighboring state. The film offers typical routines and lines for the star (he even gets to appear in drag) – which, ultimately, may be its problem as this is clearly a case of 'we've been here once too often' (even if his most obvious earlier title in this vein, MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE [1946], I've yet to catch in its entirety); having said that, Hope did previously star in a film called THE GREAT LOVER (1949) – which I've haven't seen either – but in it he played a private eye.Incidentally, the character of Casanova is certainly among the more popular in cinema – a subject attracting to it all kinds of stars (not to mention a bevy of beauties) and film-makers: from Riccardo Freda and Vittorio Gassman to Luigi Comencini and Leonard Whiting, from Federico Fellini and Donald Sutherland to Ettore Scola and Marcello Mastroianni…not to mention Michael Sarrazin (under the direction of "Euro-Cult" stalwart Enzo G. Castellari), Tony Curtis, Richard Chamberlain and all the way down to the recent Lasse Hallstrom-Heath Ledger outing.

One of Bob Hope's funnier comedies was Casanova's Big Night which finds tailor's apprentice Hope exchanging places with the great Casanova who is played by Vincent Price in an unbilled cameo.Casanova's been down on his luck lately and he's beating it out of town owing the butcher, baker, and candlestick maker as well as his valet, Basil Rathbone. But after Dutchess Hope Emerson and her son Robert Hutton catch Hope in Casanova's outfit, Rathbone and the creditors decide to let the ruse continue.Emerson wants to hire the world's greatest lover to seduce her son's intended, Audrey Dalton, because she feels she's a titled goldigger. True, but that's beside the point. The proof will be if the great lover can steal a certain petticoat with a crest embroidered on it.The Doge of Venice Arnold Moss and his two scheming aides Raymond Burr and John Carradine also have their doubts that Hope might not be the great Casanova. What could ever give them that idea? By the way Cassanova's Big Night was unusual for Hope in that he went the entire film without one Crosby joke. The palace intrigue is as thick as a cement pudding, but Hope manages to bumble through it with the help of Joan Fontaine who is one of the creditors. As is the case in all his films, she develops as a soft spot for old ski nose.Paramount gave Hope an unusually good supporting cast here and they all perform well. Of course fans of the classics might well recognize that the plot was lifted from The Three Musketeers.But can you imagine the havoc that three Bob Hopes would have caused Venice?

The jokes may be old, but the great timing of Bob Hope will keep you laughing throughout this comedy about the great romancer. Keep an eye out for Raymond Burr, who has a small role in the film.

Is Bob Hope's character here the model for Woody Allen's character of Boris Grushenko in "Love and Death"?Both characters travel to a distant city disguised as someone above their station.Woody's character is praised for his "inadvertent heroism", and so is Bob's. Bob's characters are always pretty craven, from "The Cat and the Canary" right on through, but Woody's are usually just neurotic and a little timid, rather than cowardly. There is a closer correspondence here than usual.Both films contain a mock duel which Bob/Woody manages to win. There is also an overlapping duel joke or two.Woody plays Casanova with the luscious Countess Alexandrovna.I only saw a portion of "Casanova's Big Night" so I can't make a fuller comparison between these two costume comedies, one set in the late 18th century, the other in the early 19th.In general, this film seemed to me to be one of the weakest Hope vehicles that I've seen, although I've always laughed at the film's ironic title.