Caught in the Draft (1941)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

David Butler

Writers:

Wilkie C. Mahoney (additional dialogue)
Harry Tugend (screenplay)

Release Date:

4 July 1941 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance | War

Tagline:

THE BIG LAUGH BLITZ OF 1941! (original print media ad - all caps)

Plot:

A movie star who can't stand loud noises accidentally joins the Army.

Plot Keywords:

Movie Star | Military | Colonel | Army | Marriage Proposal

Cast

Bob Hope	...	Don Bolton
Dorothy Lamour	...	Antoinette 'Tony' Fairbanks
Lynne Overman	...	Steve Riggs
Eddie Bracken	...	Bert Sparks
Clarence Kolb	...	Col. Peter Fairbanks
Paul Hurst	...	Sgt. Burns
Ferike Boros	...	Yetta
Phyllis Ruth	...	Margie
Irving Bacon	...	Cogswell
Arthur Loft	...	Movie director
Edgar Dearing	...	Recruiting sergeant
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Heinie Conklin	...	Sign hanger (scenes deleted)
Phyllis Kennedy	...	Susan (scenes deleted)

Runtime:

82 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

Finland:S | Sweden:Btl

Filming Locations:

Malibu, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since.

Quotes:

Don Bolton: [ogling Toni] Mmmm, that's a bundle! She looks like Dorothy Lamour with clothes on.

Movie Connections:

Spoofs The Jazz Singer (1927)

Soundtrack:

LOVE ME AS I AM

It's A Bit Drafty for Hope

Caught in the Draft finds Bob Hope as an egotistical movie star who may be subject to the draft so he's going to do the unthinkable, get married and get a deferment. But you'd think the last person he'd try that with is a daughter from a military family. Yet Hope pursues Dorothy Lamour in his usual wolfish Hope way, but the net result is he winds up still single and actually enlisting in the army when a Sting like con game backfires on him.

But I will say Hope has loyal friends, his agent Lynne Overman and general factotum Eddie Bracken also enlist. To say they don't exactly have the makings of Audie Murphy is to put it mildly. Still what they won't do for a pal. I know I didn't have friends like that back in the day.

Caught in the Draft has the usual run of service comedy situations and Hope while not as hopeless a soldier as Lou Costello, still he gets his usual laughs. It's a dated film in the sense we haven't had a draft in this country for almost 40 years, but I still think audiences can appreciate it today.

Look for good supporting performances by Clarence Kolb as Lamour's father and Hope's commanding officer and Paul Hurst as the eternal tough training sergeant.