They Got Me Covered (1943)

A Pulitzer Prize winning foreign news correspondent (Bob Hope) is in hot water with his newspaper editor (Donald MacBride) for botching a huge news story. But when he gets a tip that Nazis and their allies are set to attack Washington D.C., he expects that not only will the story get him another Pulitzer but it will put him back in his boss's favor. Directed by David Butler (PRINCESS AND THE PIRATE), this is one of Hope's funnier efforts. While WWII propaganda films usually concentrated on the actual war front, this ditzy effort goes a different route and plays it for laughs. Hope's comic persona, that of a clueless and cowardly narcissist, is in full bloom here and his comic timing and masterly way with a quip has never been more razor sharp. It's all nonsense of course but Hope gets a lot of help from his ROAD co-star Dorothy Lamour as his girl, who makes for a wonderful straight woman. The expert supporting cast includes Otto Preminger as the head Nazi, Eduardo Ciannelli standing in for fascist Italy and Philip Ahn representing Japan. With Florence Bates, Margaret Hayes, John Abbott, Lenore Aubert, Marion Martin and Donald Meek, who's hilarious as a nutcase who still thinks it's the Civil War.