This Is Bob Hope...

This is Bob Hope (2017)

**** (out of 4)

This here is a wonderful documentary covering the life and times of Bob Hope. The film takes us through his early days growing up poor to his rise in vaudeville, Hollywood and leading up to his final years.

Woody Allen, Dick Cavett, Margaret Cho, daughter LInda Hope, Leonard Maltin, Conan O'Brien, Connie Stevens, Brooke Shields and Tom Selleck are among the people interviewed for the documentary, which is also narrated by Billy Crystal. It should go without saying but when you're dealing with the series American Masters they're always going to deliver something great and they've honestly delivered a masterpiece here.

If you're unfamiliar with who Bob Hope is then there's a lot of great things to learn here as it is very detailed in covering his childhood and the various stages of his professional career. We get to hear about his early days on the stage, his rise in Hollywood, his support of the troops, his television show, his specials and pretty much every other aspect of his career.

There are a lot of great interviews here with people like Allen talking about the influence Hope was on him and we also get some nice comments from Selleck who talks about Hope's support of the troops. Maltin adds in a lot of stuff about the historical importance of Hope's act and what all rules he changed. We also get some nice stories from Hope's daughter who shines a light on what he was like at home.

Throughout the film there are plenty of clips from his movies, television show as well as some of the moments that he spent with the troops. All in all this is a really great documentary and one that covers just about everything you'd want including some of the more controversial moments that Hope did during Vietnam.

As someone who discovered Bob Hope on his TV specials during the '70s when I was a kid and thought he was amusing enough especially during his monologue, then watched some of his old movies when our family got cable during the '80s, then listened to many of his old radio shows on cassette when there was a set on sale at Barns & Noble in 2003, not long after he died at 100, this was quite a fascinating special on his career and his early life. He was perhaps the most popular entertainer doing everything: vaudeville, Broadway, radio, movies, TV, and going overseas during the various wars of his lifetime. He was popular during all that time-until Vietnam when so many Americans were as opposed to it as many Republicans were for it, and also some Democrats like Lyndon Johnson. But Hope always thought how important it was to entertain the troops and he never wavered in his support of them for which he forever deserved their accolades. I personally always found him funny, at least when he didn't seem so dated and out-of-touch in his later years. Much of his materiel was of his time but if you replace some of today's politicians in some of the jokes he told of yesterday's, they would still be relevant today as was then! So on that note, that's a high recommendation of "American Masters: This is Bob Hope...

"American Masters" is an exceptional show...one of the best on Public Broadcasting. Their documentaries are consistently well made, fascinating and cover the material extremely well. This one about Bob Hope is no exception, as it gives an exhaustive overview of his career and includes all the wonderful things as well as some of the bad. All too often, documentaries are too positive and paint people as if they are up for sainthood. Fortunately this one doesn't make that mistake and it covers everything...including his infidelities, his extensive work for the USO as well as his going out of fashion late in his career. Like the other documentaries, it consists of many interviews with folks who knew him or were inspired by him. It also includes tons of film clips, photos and interviews with his family. All in all, it's about the best documentary on the man you can find. Well worth seeing.

This is the perfect example of a documentary. It shows us Bob Hope, so that a person that has never even heard of him can understand his life story completely (such as me). It helps to piece together the story of this amazing man, and it even made me cry at the end, which is very hard to do. 11\10

6/1/18. This is a great biopic about a great entertainer. Bob Hope had his fingers in many entertainment pies, from radio to TV and onto movies. But, he is likely to be remembered for his work with the USO, entertaining American troops around the world through several wars. I really didn't know how diverse his career was and how multi-talented he was. Not only can he do comedy, he was a consummate song-and-dance man as well. It's good to have this well-balanced documentary available that does great justice to the memory of a wonderful man.