{"id":31242,"date":"2019-05-24T08:32:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T12:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=31242"},"modified":"2019-05-24T08:32:27","modified_gmt":"2019-05-24T12:32:27","slug":"the-bootleg-files-going-spanish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/24\/the-bootleg-files-going-spanish\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: Going Spanish"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 686:<\/strong> \u201cGoing Spanish\u201d (1934 short comedy starring Bob Hope).
\n
\nLAST SEEN:<\/strong> On YouTube.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> On public domain labels.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> A lapsed copyright enables anyone to duplicate prints.
\n
\nCHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> The chances of a digitally restored version are nil.<\/p>\n

Eighty-five years ago, Bob Hope made his film debut in a dinky little two-reel comedy. And thanks to an indelicate wisecrack about the film\u2019s quality, he almost saw his film career end with that debut effort.
\n<\/p>\n

From the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s, Hope built a reputation as a popular comedian on the vaudeville circuit. He did a screen test for the Pathe company in 1931, but it was not well-received. In 1933, Hope\u2019s career received a big boost when he landed the role of Huckleberry Haines in the Broadway musical \u201cRoberta,\u201d and he quickly became the toast of the New York entertainment scene.<\/p>\n

Based on his success in \u201cRoberta,\u201d Hope was contacted by Al Christie, a director\/producer at Educational Pictures, a cheapo operation specializing in short comedy films, to star in six two-reelers at a $2,500-per-picture deal. Educational shot its films at the Astoria Studios in Queens, which would have enabled Hope to work on camera during the day and then shuttle back to Broadway for his evening appearance in \u201cRoberta.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hope\u2019s film debut was originally titled \u201cJumping Beans,\u201d but was later retitled \u201cGoing Spanish.\u201d Even by the mild standards of Educational Pictures\u2019 shorts, this endeavor was painfully silly without being particularly funny. And while some of Hope\u2019s charisma shined through, it nonetheless represented one of the shakiest debuts of a movie icon.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing Spanish\u201d takes place in an unspecified Latin American country. Hope plays (what else?) Bob, an American tourist traveling with his fianc\u00e9 and her mother in a chauffeured limousine driven by a local. They arrive outside of the town of Los Pochos Eggos and the chauffeur informs Bob that the annual \u201cDon\u2019t Do It Day\u201d festivities are underway. On that particular day, a person can inflict insults or bodily harm on someone else, but all is immediately forgiven if the perpetrator starts to sing a happy song for the victim. The chauffeur demonstrates how this works by yanking Bob\u2019s prominent ski nose and then singing a ditty. Bob tests this out by slugging the chauffeur and then adding his own little jolly tune.<\/p>\n

Los Pochos Eggos is governed by a fat, woolly-haired mayor who dressed like Napoleon and whose presence is announced by a trumpet-carrying aide \u2013 the underling always winds up blowing his instrument square into the mayor\u2019s ear. Bob\u2019s automobile arrives in town and crashes into the mayor\u2019 car, causing it to collapse. Bob gets out and further dismantles the car, cheekily reminding the mayor of the Don\u2019t Do It Day custom while bedraggled official fumes, \u201cThis means war!\u201d<\/p>\n

Bob arrives with his fianc\u00e9 and her mother at their hotel, where they discover their suite costs 75 cents per night \u2013 Bob adds the high cost is because the room comes with a rat trap. Downstairs, the daughter of the owner of a struggling store (singer Leah Ray \u2013 her character is only known as Seniorita) is singing in a caf\u00e9 while the locals dance. Senorita and Bob eventually meet \u2013 she calls out \u201cSe\u00f1or! Se\u00f1or!\u201d and Bob replies, \u201cAt home, everyone calls me Junior.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senorita recruits Bob to judge the annual funny face costume, and he gives first prize to the mayor \u2013 even though the mayor is not a contestant. Meanwhile, Bob\u2019s fianc\u00e9 is wooed by a Latin lothario who dubs himself the \u201cKing of the Pampas\u201d \u2013 and this character makes the fianc\u00e9 reconsider her planned wedding.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Bob and Senorita go to the local town hall so he can arrange his marriage. The only one who can perform marriages is the mayor. Bob harasses the mayor by asking if he combs his hair with an egg-beater and then assaults in him a manner that the mayor gets his fingers stuck in his ears. Back in town, Bob is approached by a man who waves money and asks his likes to play for large stakes. \u201cLarge steaks, with French fried potatoes?\u201d Bob asks. The man is Senorita\u2019s daughter and his gambling is an effort to pay off debts on the store \u2013 but he loses to Bob, who becomes the owner of the store.<\/p>\n

Bob\u2019s fianc\u00e9 turns up in the store to ask that they terminate their engagement. Bob is eager to oblige \u2013 he is fond of Senorita, and tries to sing a love song to her but winds up getting interrupted by customers. One of these customers provides food to the local soldiers, and it turns out they consumed jumping beans \u2013 that become obvious because the soldiers cannot stop jumping. Bob and Senorita hightail it out of town to become a married couple.<\/p>\n

Viewed today, \u201cGoing Spanish\u201d offers a very primitive concept of what would become the Bob Hope persona. The character is brash and too eager to reel off jokey comments, but he is also much more abrasive than the later Hope persona and his penchant for violence seems like a carryover from the Mack Sennett era of comedy. The real star here is vibrant Leah Ray, who is a wonderful singer and a genuinely sexy presence. The trade journal Film Daily insisted that she \u201clooks like a sure bet for pictures,\u201d but the lovely Ray only stayed on camera for a few more years before marrying music industry executive Sonny Werblin and retiring to raise a family and pursue philanthropic endeavors.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing Spanish\u201d did not get good reviews when it was released, with Variety complaining Hope was \u201cat the mercy of poor material.\u201d Hope realized immediately that he was in a dud, joking to newspaper columnist Walter Winchell, \u201cWhen they catch Dillinger, they\u2019re going to force him to sit through it twice.\u201d Winchell published the wisecrack in his nationally syndicated column, which infuriated director\/producer Al Christie, who promptly cancelled Hope\u2019s contract with Educational.<\/p>\n

That should have been the end of Hope\u2019s career \u2013 his barbed putdown could have branded him as too loose of a cannon for other studios. But Warner Bros. decided that he had potential and picked him up for a series of short films. Hope only stayed at that studio until 1936 and was off-screen for two years until Paramount signed him for a supporting role in \u201cThe Big Broadcast of 1938,\u201d in which he sang a tune called \u201cThanks for the Memory.\u201d The rest, as they say, is history.<\/p>\n

Educational went out of business in 1939. Astor Pictures, a distributor specializing in both art house and shlock fare, picked up \u201cGoing Spanish\u201d in 1940 and used Hope\u2019s fame to re-release the film under its original title and again as \u201cBob\u2019s Big Day.\u201d Astor would combine \u201cGoing Spanish\u201d with early 1930s Educational shorts starring then-unknowns Milton Berle and Bert Lahr in a 1948 feature called \u201cIt Pays to Be Funny,\u201d which was released with an advertising campaign that gave the false impression all three of the funnymen were teamed for a new romp.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing Spanish\u201d fell into the public domain years ago and has been available in terrible-quality duped prints for years. Considering its poor reputation, it is unlikely that there will be any attempt to digitally restore the production. Still, the film earns a footnote of importance for getting Bob Hope before movie audiences, and one can credit the beloved star for building a glorious career despite getting off on the wrong foot while putting that wrong foot in his funny mouth.<\/p>\n

IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen to \u201cThe Online Movie Show with Phil Hall<\/a>\u201d on SoundCloud, now in its third season.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 686: \u201cGoing Spanish\u201d (1934 short comedy starring Bob Hope). LAST SEEN: On YouTube. AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On public domain labels. REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: A lapsed copyright enables anyone to duplicate prints. CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: The chances of a digitally restored version are nil. Eighty-five years ago, Bob Hope […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":31243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1513],"tags":[1352,219,2250,2249,939],"class_list":["post-31242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bootleg-files","tag-bob-hope","tag-comedy","tag-educational-pictures","tag-going-spanish","tag-short-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31242"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31245,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31242\/revisions\/31245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}