Bob Hope and Martha Raye continually keep the viewer off balance with regard to their romantic intentions in "Never Say Die", even though they start out by getting married and then go about falling in something like love by the movie's finale. In between, the story ping pongs back and forth between scenes of frustrated would be spouses who don't get their way. Andy Devine takes a wrong turn off the last stagecoach and winds up here as Raye's good old boy from back home who try as he might, never quite seems to get things right between himself and his fiancée. Someone should have thought of slipping him a Mickey.
I had to rewind and listen closely a couple of times for a line Hope slid past the censors. When gold digger Juno Marko (Gale Sondergaard) tries to trap John Kidley (Hope) with her matrimonial snare, she alludes to what might have been an indiscreet night of passion. Hope's response - "..., well that was the elevator you see, I just went and I got off, it'll happen."
I probably got a kick the most from Kidley's butler Jeepers, played in great understated comic fashion by Ernest Cossart. His deadpan delivery was reminiscent of E.E. Clive's portrayal of Tenny in the Bulldog Drummond franchise.
If all the hijinks wasn't enough, the story takes place at a health spa in the Swiss Alps named Bad Gaswasser. You just knew that Hope would get some mileage out of that. Martha Raye's at her frenetic best trying to say good by to her beau Henry Munch (Devine) as she scrambles to catch the honeymoon rendezvous with Kidley. If you pay close enough attention, you might even be able to keep it all straight without benefit of a cross on a muzzle.
I had to rewind and listen closely a couple of times for a line Hope slid past the censors. When gold digger Juno Marko (Gale Sondergaard) tries to trap John Kidley (Hope) with her matrimonial snare, she alludes to what might have been an indiscreet night of passion. Hope's response - "..., well that was the elevator you see, I just went and I got off, it'll happen."
I probably got a kick the most from Kidley's butler Jeepers, played in great understated comic fashion by Ernest Cossart. His deadpan delivery was reminiscent of E.E. Clive's portrayal of Tenny in the Bulldog Drummond franchise.
If all the hijinks wasn't enough, the story takes place at a health spa in the Swiss Alps named Bad Gaswasser. You just knew that Hope would get some mileage out of that. Martha Raye's at her frenetic best trying to say good by to her beau Henry Munch (Devine) as she scrambles to catch the honeymoon rendezvous with Kidley. If you pay close enough attention, you might even be able to keep it all straight without benefit of a cross on a muzzle.