The Big Broadcast Of 1938 (1938)

Two new streamline ocean liners, the Gigantic and the Colossal, are in a race across the Atlantic from New York to France. A varied group of passengers on the Gigantic include the ship's owner (W.C. Fields), his daughter (Martha Raye), a radio emcee (Bob Hope) and his fiancee (Dorothy Lamour). Directed by Mitchell Leisen (HOLD BACK THE DAWN), this is a hodge podge of weak comedy material padded out by musical acts like band leaders (Shep Fields), opera singers (Kirsten Flagstad), Mexican balladeers (Tito Guizar) etc. The most memorable musical number is the Oscar winning song Thanks For The Memory which became Bob Hope's signature song. I'm not a fan of W.C. Fields (who plays twin brothers) and he's horrendously unfunny here and we have to suffer through his billiards and golf skits which add nothing to the movie though if you're a Fields fan I suppose it might amuse you. There's not enough of the fifth billed Hope, if there were there might have been hope (no pun intended). With Shirley Ross, Ben Blue, Leif Erickson and Lynne Overman.