Caught in the Draft (1941)

     In 1941’s Caught in the Draft Bob Hope plays a movie star who woos the daughter of an army general (Dorothy Lamour) because the Congress is voting on establishing a national armed forced draft. Of course, he actually does start to fall for her, “she looks like Dorothy Lamour with her clothes on” his character remarks at one point. When the draft is passed, she learns of his original plan and breaks things off. To prove he really does like her he tells her that he will enlist in the army and sets up a friend to play the soldier at the enlistment office and make it look like he is enlisting. His friend gets chased off and the movie star ends up actually enlisting. Basic training antics ensue and, since her father is a General, the girl actually lives on the base. To prove his love for the girl he promises the General he will earn the rank of corporal at the end of training. Being a pampered coward, this is a challenge for him and more antics ensue.

     Director David Butler made his living directing comedies (including 1930’s Just Imagine. The previous review in this section) with stars like Will Rogers and Shirley Temple. One outlier was White Fang in 1936, but he came back to comedies and worked with Bob Hope a few times, including Road to Morocco. Caught in the Draft appears to be their first pairing. Hope plays his usual coward character, though he does have a few nice character moments in the second half. He is teamed up with rising young musical comedy star Eddie Bracken and Lynne Overman, known for his pitch changing voice. They actually make a pretty good comic trio, though I didn’t see the reason for Oveman’s character to enlist along with the others. He’s plainly too old, but he does add a few laughs and helps move the plot along. Dorothy Lamour doesn’t have to stretch much here, though it’s true, she is wearing more clothes than usual. She’s “the girl” but does get the opportunity to take part in the third act zaniness.

     In September 1940, Congress actually did pass the Burke-Wadworth Act, imposing the first peacetime draft in the history of the United States. So, the premise was “ripped from the headlines”. Caught in the Draft was released in July of 1941 about 5 months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entering World War II. This gave audiences one of their last chances to enjoy a “silly soldier” movie before that job got deadly serious. Caught in the Draft was a hit and Paramount’s second most profitable film of the year. Behind another Bob Hope vehicle Louisiana Purchase.

     I had a good time with the movie. I understood most of the references, but I’ll admit that many also went over my head. I’m a sucker for Bob Hope’s coward character. So, I cut him a lot of slack. For example, there is a moment when he falls into a big muddy puddle and comes out of it covered in mud. He looks at the camera and does an Al Jolson impression- “MAMMY”. I get it, but that’s a gag that has aged like milk. Luckily, aside from a total lack of any minority of any kind in the movie, that is the only uncomfortable joke in there. The second half of the movie takes place during their basic training and reminded me of what Harold Ramis and Bill Murray did in 1981’s Stripes. Especially when it came to drills and marching in formation. Caught in the Drafts 82-minute running time works well because the premise was about to get tiresome right about the time it was wrapping up. There is a sequence where Hope is trying to retrieve his uniform that keeps making its way through a hospital, to change and be in place before the General notices that I thought was about to go on too long, but it didn’t and paid off nicely. This isn’t going to go down as one of my favorite Bob Hope movies, but it’s definitely worth your time if you’ve never seen it.