I'll Take Sweden (1965) We were only a few minutes into watching this gruesomely unwatchable, unfunny Bob Hope comedy when we started to imagine all the more productive things we could pursue in the 97 minutes it took for this wretched film to unspool.
Folding a load of laundry, for example. Working on our screenplay, Hosing down the driveway. Taking out the trash.
Or even taking a long afternoon nap.
Any of these choices would have been preferable to enduring "I'll Take Sweden"
This is bottom of the barrel tripe on multiple levels, an excruciating foolhardy attempt to blend a wheezing, exhausted mid 1960's Bob Hope comedy with the "swingin" generation of youthful performers.....represented in this movie by the always overbearing teen idol Frankie Avalon and Hollywood's most genuinely gifted starlet, Tuesday Weld.
Considering Weld's enormous potential for great roles and future superstardom (which she never truly fulfilled), it's practically a tragedy to see her mired in the muck of this movie. And her casting here doesn't even make sense, since she was already aging out of her signature roles of jailbait teenyboppers,
Here, she's the hard-partying, free spirited daughter of Bob Hope, who once again stands around in a business suit with one frozen expression on his face as he mirthlessly rattles off the lamest wisecracks ever written for any comedian.
Hope's out to prevent Weld from marrying an unemployed non-entity (Avalon, of course) who zooms around on a motorcycle, lives in a dilapidated trailer and sings instantly forgettable songs.
Taking a job in his company's Sweden branch, Hope spirits Weld away to that country, where he himself finds love with a woman semi-close to his advancing age (Dina Merril)......but then he's forced to thwart a horny young Swedish would-be seducer (Jeremy Slate) who's got Weld's virginity clearly in his sights.
Other than stock footage of Lufthansa planes in flight, there's not a single sign of Sweden in "I'll Take Sweden".....only cheap, backlot sets left over from situation comedies. There's also no sign of anything even remotely resembling humor in a film billing itself as a comedy.
The one and only thing that amused us........the lighting director's strenuous efforts to throw a deliberate shadow over Bob Hope's rapidly receding hairline. Now that's hilarious.......
There's nothing more to say........and if we continue, we're bound to regret the amount of time we spent writing this review even more than the precious 97 minutes of our life we sacrificed to view the film.
An easy call, this one. A 100 per cent AFH, an ABOMINATION FROM HELL. A nothing movie designed for nobody. Even if you're a fan of Bob Hope back in his prime, this one's hopeless.
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