Sorrowful Jones (1949)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Sidney Lanfield

Writers:

Edmund L. Hartmann (screenplay)
Sam Hellman (adaptation)

Release Date:

4 July 1949 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

A young girl is left with the notoriously cheap Sorrowful Jones as a marker for a bet. When her father doesn't return...

Plot Keywords:

Beautiful Woman | Horse | Horse Racing | Character Name In Title

Cast

Bob Hope	...	Humphrey 'Sorrowful' Jones
Lucille Ball	...	Gladys O'Neill
William Demarest	...	Regret
Bruce Cabot	...	Big Steve Holloway
Thomas Gomez	...	Reardon
Tom Pedi	...	Once Over Sam
Paul Lees	...	Orville Smith
Houseley Stevenson	...	Doc Chesley
Ben Welden	...	Big Steve's Bodyguard
Emmett Vogan	...	Psychiatrist
Mary Jane Saunders	...	Martha Jane Smith

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

The actual title of the original Damon Runyon story is "Markie"; "Little Miss Marker" was the title of an earlier film adaptation.

Quotes:

Once Over Sam: He makes a monkey out of me? Well I'll make an omelet outta him!

Movie Connections:

Version of 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962)

Soundtrack:

Rock-a-Bye Baby

Another Damond Runyon dud on screen...lacks sparkle of Shirley Temple...

Damon Runyon was another one of those writers whose work never transferred very successfully to the screen. Even the great Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald had troublesome films made from their novels. Runyon failed before with THE BIG STREET (Lucille Ball as a hard-boiled dame using Henry Fonda as a doormat) but had better luck when GUYS AND DOLLS transformed one of his works into a musical.

Here it fails once again to provide BOB HOPE and LUCILLE BALL with anything more than routine roles in this racetrack comedy about an unlikely man to chaperone a kid (MARY JANE SAUNDERS in the role originated by Shirley Temple in "Little Miss Marker"). Saunders is cute, but that's about it. She's no Temple and never went on to child star stardom as Temple did.

Sidney Lanfield directed a lot of lightweight films for Paramount, not all of them successful, and this has to be counted among his least likable comedies--unless, of course, you happen to be a fan of the stars and can watch them in anything.

Hope has some amusing one-liners as the man who takes a marker on a kid who becomes a big part of his life and Lucille Ball has a few quips of her own. Adolphe Menjou played the unsuitable man in the Temple film, with better and more believable results. Hope and Ball are simply killing time here and it shows.

The story, which depends so much on the charisma and appeal of a child star, simply hasn't got the strength to support Hope and Ball. This one's a real loser without the charm of the original.