Marie Windsor

(On Cable TV, January 2021) I probably shouldn’t feel all that surprised that critics are seldom portrayed favourably in Hollywood films. When they’re not ridiculously mean-spirited to compensate for past slights received by the screenwriter, they’re usually played as arrogant idiots as in the case in Critic’s Choice (or the somewhat similar Please Don’t Eat the Daisies). Here, Bob Hope pairs up with Lucille Ball for the fourth and final time: he plays a well-regarded Broadway critic, while she, as his wife, keeps going from one hobby to another, ultimately settling on writing a play. She’s far more successful than either of them imagined, however, and the cracks in their marriage, already exposed while she was working with a playboy director (a young Rip Thorne—surprisingly slim and handsome for those of us used to his late-career looks), are further widened when he insists on panning the play upon opening night. (And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why us conscientious critics are prompted to disclose any real or imagined conflict of interest, to the point of consciously not reviewing works from people we feel close to.)  Critic’s Choice, clearly, works on a comic rather than realistic level—although the relationship issues discussed late in the film feel unusually pointed for what’s supposed to be a silly comedy. Marie Windsor shows up in a small role, but the spotlight remains on the lead hope as they bicker (often unpleasantly) throughout the picture. Hope doesn’t have the good role here—his character, to put it bluntly, acts like an idiot in his third act choices, and the film wraps up in a somewhat unconvincing fashion to try to make up for it. It’s a somewhat by-the-numbers film considering that Hope and Ball are both involved, but it can be fun to have a look back at the 1960s Broadway scene.