Comedy icons Bob Hope and Lucille Ball team-up in the 1950 Technicolor film Fancy Pants, directed by George Marshall, where Bob gets in over his head with some crazy impersonation shenanigans. The film is a musical version of Ruggles of Red Gap. Fancy Pants was the second pairing of the two icons, as in 1949 they were in the comedy-drama Sorrowful Jones.
In Fancy Pants, Bob Hope (The Paleface, The Ghost Breakers) plays struggling actor Arthur Tyler, who is persuaded to play Humphrey, a butler and go to the United States with Effie Floud (Lea Penman, We’re No Angels) and her daughter Agatha (Lucille Ball, Sorrowful Jones, The Dark Corner) to refine themselves as an aristocratic family. They go to a small town in the Old West to show them how the family lives. A misunderstanding causes Arthur to not only impersonate a butler to the townsfolk, but also needs to pretend he is an English gentleman to the visiting President Theodore Roosevelt (John Alexander, who also played Teddy Roosevelt in Arsenic and Old Lace a few years earlier). Of course, poor Arthur gets caught with his double deceptions!
It was great to see the great comedy pair in a film together and they have lots of chemistry together. Fancy Pants ranges from amusing to funny depending on your taste in Bob Hope comedies.
Fancy Pants receives a Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber, which is advertised as being “Remastered in HD by Paramount Pictures – From 4K Scans of the 35mm YCM Three-Strip Technicolor Elements”. The video quality is top-notch with beautiful, sharp colors with rich details and textures to the scenery. Close-ups reveal a lot of detail to the actors’ faces. Fancy Pants has a nice, smooth, polished look to it without any signs of print damage outside of a few speckles. This is another impressive offering in the video department! No DNR appears to have been applied.
English DTS-HD master audio 2.0 is also excellent with crisp, clear dialogue and action noises that come in perfectly balanced. Van Cleave’s musical scores also sound just wonderful. Nothing really sounds too terribly aggressive and overall, the audio quality is pleasant all the way through.
Optional English subtitles are offered for this release!
The extra for this release are a bevy of theatrical trailers for many Bob Hope features including The Paleface, The Cat and the Canary, The Ghost Breakers, Road to Zanzibar, Road to Utopia, Road to Morocco, Nothing but the Truth, Caught in the Draft, Alias Jesse James, and Sorrowful Jones.
Despite an absence of supplements, it’s great to have more Bob Hope films on Blu-ray, especially with Award Winning actress and the first woman to have run a major studio, Lucille Ball! The audio and video quality for this release is excellent and can easily recommend this offering!
Fancy Pants
Director- George Marshall
Cast- Bob Hope, Lucille Ball
Country of Origin- USA
Distributor – Kino Lorber
Number of Discs – 1
Reviewed by – David Steigman
Date –11/27/2022