review for Cancel My Reservation on AllMovie

Anyone unfortunate enough to have Cancel My Reservation as his/her first exposure to Bob Hope would likely never believe that the comedian was once actually funny. Hope's last starring film, Reservation is a disaster that is insistently and unrelentingly dull, dull, dull. What laughs there are -- and many would argue that there are none -- really qualify only as chuckles. Most of the intended laughs are stillborn. Clearly, the largest amount of blame rests with the screenplay, a morass of nonsense that tries to capture some of the magic of Hope's older "Bob in a pickle" set-ups but update it with some "relevant" tie-ins to the plight of the Native American. It doesn't work, and rarely has a screenplay seemed as tired as this one. Paul Bogart's direction is sluggish and totally uninspired. Star Hope also seems tired, as well as ridiculously old to be playing a character that is allegedly 42 years of age. Had Hope accepted that he had become a man of a certain age, he might have found some new comedy to mine, a new variation on his character that might have made it richer. By refusing to grow old, he cut himself off at the knees. Hope at least gets very good support from Eva Marie Saint, who brings much more to her part than it deserves, and Anne Archer looks quite fetching. But there's really no reason to bother with Reservation.