The Bob Hope Collection Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

The Bob Hope Collection Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 6, 2020

Bob Hope became such a monolith over the course of his later life that it may be hard to remember at one point he was just another “player”, albeit a promising one, at Paramount. In that regard, as with many other nascent stars at both Paramount and a number of other major studios during Hollywood’s so-called “Golden Era”, it can be kind of fun seeing the marketing and other behind the scenes mavens at the studio trying to develop a persona for Hope that would click with the public. Hope’s feature films from the first couple of years of his career tended to be lightweight musicals and/or comedies, but Hope was also featured in two films that helped establish his wisecracking milquetoast characterizations and which also helped to develop the horror-comedy hybrid that was also utilized effectively by Abbott and Costello in such films as Hold That Ghost (which notably debuted after both of these features, which would suggest that the Hope outings attracted the attention of bean counters in studios other than Paramount).

For reviews of the two films in this set, please click on the following reviews:

The Cat and the Canary Blu-ray review

The Ghost Breakers Blu-ray review

The Bob Hope Collection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Video quality of each film is assessed in the above linked reviews.

The Bob Hope Collection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Audio quality of each film is assessed in the above linked reviews.

The Bob Hope Collection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Supplements on each disc are detailed in the above linked reviews. Additionally, each film comes housed in its own keepcase with reversible sleeve, with both keepcases housed in a sturdy box with a kind of cool die cut top.

The Bob Hope Collection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This is a wonderfully enjoyable double feature with Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard making for a fun, if not overly libidinous, romantic pairing. The Cat and the Canary probably fares better in the video department than The Ghost Breakers, but the overall package here offers decent technical merits and very well done commentaries. Recommended.