Bob Hope Movies

Bob Hope starred in 53 movies from 1938-1972
Bob Hope starred in 53 movies from 1938-1972

Want to know the best Bob Hope movies?  How about the worst Bob Hope movies?  Curious about Bob Hope’s box office grosses or which Bob Hope movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Bob Hope movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which one got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.

Back in 2011 I wrote a movie page that ranked Bing Crosby’s movies.  At the time I got numerous requests to do a Bob Hope page.  Well 4 years later….I am happy to report that I finally have a Bob Hope movie page written….sorry for the delay.  Bob Hope (1903-2003) was one of the greatest entertainers ever!  During his almost 80 year career….he did it all!  Movie star….check.  Television star…..check.  Best selling author…..check.   Popular singer…..check.  Accomplished dancer……check.  Stand up comedian……check.  Oscar® host….check.  This page is only going to look at his impressive movie career.

His IMDb page shows 94 acting credits from 1934-1994. This page will rank Bob Hope movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.  His 6 cameo roles, his 10 shorts and 15 television credits were not included in the rankings.  After the massive Hope table is a section of possibly interesting facts about Bob Hope.

One of the greatest screen combos ever...Bob Hope and Bing Crosby
One of the greatest screen combos ever…Bob Hope and Bing Crosby

Bob Hope Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.

Bob Hope Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort by Bob Hope’s co-stars of his movies.
  • Sort Bob Hope movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost.
  • Sort Bob Hope movies by their yearly box office rank
  • Sort Bob Hope movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Bob Hope movie received.
  • Sort Bob Hope movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score.  UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Bob Hope in 1952's Son of Paleface
Bob Hope in 1952’s Son of Paleface

Possibly Interesting Facts About Bob Hope

1.  Leslie Townes “Bob” Hope was born in Eltham, London on May 29th,1903.  He was the 5th of 7 sons.

2.  Bob Hope’s path to stardom.  His family left London and settled in Cleveland, Ohio in 1905.  After working as a butcher, Hope decided to try a career in entertainment.  While performing in 1925, Hope was spotted by silent film star, Fatty Arbuckle.  Arbuckle helped Hope get higher profile work. By 1934 Hope was performing on the radio.  In 1935 he started appearing in some movie shorts…which eventually got him a role in The Big Broadcast of 1938.  His performance in that movie was singled out and Hope never looked back.

3. In 1939 Bob Hope hosted the Academy Awards® ceremony.  He ended up hosting the ceremony fourteen times between 1939 and 1977.

4. Bob Hope was never nominated for an Oscar®.  The Academy did give Hope an incredible 5 Honorary Oscars®.  He got Honorary Oscars® in 1940, 1944, 1952, 1959 and 1965.  Bob Hope did pick up two Best Actor Golden Globe® nominations for 1960’s The Facts of Life and 1961’s Bachelor in Paradise.

5. Bob Hope and the USO (United Service Organizations).  Bob Hope entertained active service American military personnel from 1941 to 1991.  He made 57 tours for the USO.  Hope was declared an honorary veteran of the United States Armed Forces in 1997 by an act of Congress.

6. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby made a series of “Road To” movies.  From 1940 (Road to Singapore)  to 1962 (Road To Hong Kong) they made 7 “Road To” movies.  The combined adjusted box office gross for the 7 movies is over 1 BILLION dollars.

7. Bob Hope was married two times.  He was married to Grace Louise Troxell from 1933 to 1934.  He married Dolores Reade in 1934.  He and Dolores were married 69 years. They adopted four children. Hope passed away at age 100….while Dolores passed away at age 102.

8. Bob Hope movies that never happened:  1. Cary Grant role in Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)…Paramount would not loan him out.  2.  Hope turned down Cary Grant role in Operation Petticoat (1959).  3.  Guys and Dolls (1955) was supposed to be another Hope/Crosby movie….instead it turned to be a Marlon Brando/Frank Sinatra movie.  4.  The Road to the Fountain of Youth….was going to be the 8th “Road To” movie…was in pre-production stages when Bing Crosby passed away.

9. When I write a page on a classic actor….I usually end up reading lots of books on that classic performer as I try to track down elusive box office information.  Normally these books end up not being too helpful.  Well I am happy to say that the book, Hope (2014) by Richard Zoglin, is an exception to that rule.  Zoglin’s Hope is a great read filled with lots of informative and interesting information on Hope’s career and life…not to mention some nice box office nuggets.  I think any Bob Hope fan will really enjoy reading the Zoglin book on Bob Hope.

10.  Bob Hope and “Thanks For The Memories”.  In the 1938 movie The Big Broadcast of 1938, Bob Hope sang “Thanks For The Memories”….the song won an Oscar®.  To capitalize on the success of the song, Paramount named the next Hope movie….Thanks For The Memories (1938).  The song would become Hope’s theme song for the rest of his life..  I can not think of a better way to end this page other than to say Thanks For The Memories Mr. Hope.

Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences. Golden Globes® are the registered trademark and service mark of the Hollywood Foreign Press.

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37 thoughts on “Bob Hope Movies”

  1. 1 Contrary to his public persona of an all-round good guy set hands who’ve worked on Hope/Crosby films have claimed that Bing was OK but that Robert could throw his weight about at times. One is never sure whether to believe these stories but I suppose in this case it could be true as Bob came from England.

    2 VIDEO COMMENTS (1) slightly mixed bag in relation to my personal tastes as one of my all-time fave Hope comedies Off Limits (aka Military Policeman] with Joe Yule Jr was excluded and another of my top ones Bachelor in Paradise was marked quite low (2) however my very favourite Cat and Canary was your No 3 and you also included Beau James which a lot of chroniclers ignore because it was a relatively straight dramatic role for Hope about NY Mayor Jimmy Walker and I loved it. (3) you started off with a respectable 6.2 but conversely did not get into the really high ratings until almost the Top 10 (4) Bruce and you are away off beam with each other in this one as for critic/audience 5 of his entire Top 6 are Road films and Cat and Canary for example is consigned to 15th – Cogerson! Cogerson ” why hast thou deserted me? (5) despite the few minor disappointments I mentioned the marvellous posters and stills made it a 9.3 and my pick of the posters is You Got me Covered, Fancy Pants, Road to Rio and Beau James, with great black and white stills from Road films and of Hope/Russell and Hope hoofing it with Old Yankee Doodle Dandy himself (overall great fun and the presentation faithfully capturing the spirit of Hope’s often-madcap screen career. So thanks for a ‘Top 30’ containing 31 films!
    PS On Bogie’s page Bruce has given us 44 his worldwide grosses and I have double checked and confirmed that he has allocated an adjusted $630 mil to Casablanca

    Reply

    1. CLARIFICATION – Figure missing from previous post – Bruce made Cat and Canary his no 15.Maybe as a punishment he should be put to the trouble of amending tthe post for me !

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      1. Hey Bob….fixed your “15th Cat and Canary” error….I just verified my rating score….of my sources….IMDb gives it the best rating..of 7.3….so I think a 71% seems pretty accurate and certainly not good enough to knock off any of the Top 3 Road movies. Heck RottenTomatoes did not even have enough reviews to even merit a score.

        Reply

    2. Hey Bob…..you know how Bobs can be….so I do not find it hard to believe that Bob threw his weight around…lol.

      As for Casablanca….it almost earned as much overseas as it did domestically….$4.1 million in rentals to $3.4 in rentals…..while Meet Me In St. Louis…..did better in USA with $5.0 million in rentals but only $1.55 million in overseas rentals.

      I think the only thing missing is the link to Steve’s Bob Hope video. Thanks for the thoughts on Mr. Hope

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    3. Hi Bob, thanks for checking out my latest video, always appreciated. I was telling John earlier that there was a fraction of a point between the entire top 10 on my Bob Hope chart. No outright winners here. I’m sure you’ve seen more Hope comedies than I have.

      My favorites are the Road movies, the two Paleface’s, Cat and the Canary and The Ghost Breakers. Oh yes and The Princess and the Pirate was a lot of fun too co-starring ‘crazy old coot’ Walter Brennan as ‘Featherhead’.

      With $630m adjusted gross for Casablanca I’m surprised it wasn’t on Bruce’s recent top 20 list for the 1940s.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge0SB7CEDL4

      Daniel Kaminsky coming up next.

      Reply

      1. 1 I’ll be closely watching your views figure to see how Les Townes’ figures compare with those of Harry Lillis Jr.

        2 Meanwhile I’m looking forward to your video about Lillis Jr’s old Xmas sparring partner ! Keep up the good work and don’t let Bruce blind you with the science of stats.

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        1. Will any actor pass Errol Flynn in video views? Flynn is still getting nearly 200 views a day on my channel. Maybe it’s the photo of Flynn on the cover that’s attracting them?

          Interest in the new Tom Cruise movie ‘The Mummy’ must be the reason why my ‘Mummy Top 20’ video has taken off and is getting over a thousand views a day, with 1300 views last sunday! I asked Bruce to work on a ‘Best of Horror’ page but he keeps putting it off, maybe next Halloween.

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          1. Hey Steve….congrats on those massive numbers….your You Tube channel is really taking off….all of your hard work is paying off. As for a Horror Page….it is coming….they just take lots of research and time…..the last genre I did was the science fiction one….and never really took off….especially compared to the other genre pages I did….but I will get a horror done before next Halloween.

  2. 1 In his act Bob Hope used to crack jokes about Paramount as his supposedly tyrannical employer and I remember one radio broadcast in which he made up a little song about how Crosby was so rich he might buy Paramount and tear up Hope’s contract ! That contract means that we are very lucky to have domestic grosses for Hope’s films never mind worldwide ones. However if we for fun provisionally apply to Bob’s adjusted overall gross of $6.75 billion the average ratio of 65% domestic/35% foreign earnings which has surfaced for other classic era stars the WW figure comes to nearly $10.4 billion which embracing as it does 30 of Bob’s movies breaking the $100 mil barrier is not bad for a comedian ignored in AFI’s screen legends lists.

    2 In the 1950s at least Bob and Marlon Brando seemed to have a friendly relationship and would occasionally be involved in joint horseplay for the entertainment of others such as grappling each other by the throat for perceived possession of an Oscar; and they sat together as the only film stars invited to the wedding of another prominent entertainer. However in later years [because of political differences I guess] their relationship soured and the insults started flying in public. For example Brando once said that Hope was such an “applause junkie” that “if he saw three people standing beside a telephone booth he would be over cracking jokes.” An insensitive interviewer later put this to Hope who retorted that being such a dry-bread “Marlon Brando wouldn’t know a joke if it hit him up the face.”

    3 All this saddened me as I admire Brando’s acting and Hope’s sense of humour has always greatly appealed to me. In my view they don’t come much bigger that Hope or Bing and both richly deserved places in the Screen Legends lists. And who would I leave out? James Dean definitely and then it would be toss up between a few others. The criteria that determined that for example Golden Holden or Edward G were greater Legends than Bing and Bob has always mystified me.

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  4. Very good review list! I’ve been a big Bob Hope fan since the 50’s, when I enjoyed several of his hit films as a kid. I loved Road to Morocco (I’ll have one of does and one of does…), both Palefaces, and the Pirate and the Lady, as well as the Lemmon Drop Kid, Ghostbreakers and several of the Road series. I always thought he did a great job entertaining the troops, and although I was against the war in Nam, I was not against the soldiers and was glad to see them get some much-needed entertainment (and I did serve during that time). A very funny man with a great sense of timing! Thanks for the memories indeed!

    Reply

    1. Hey John…glad a Bob Hope found my Hope movie page. His movie career was so successful that finding his box office numbers was actually pretty easy compared to other stars of that time period. I have seen all of the movies you mentioned….with Pirate and the Lady and Ghostbreakers being my favorites. Hope was awesome to the troops……I like that he did not turn his back of the Vietnam vets….even if he did not think we needed to be here. He was a true American hero….thanks for the great comment.

      Reply

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