They Got Me Covered

They Got Me Covered (1942)

Genres - Comedy  |   Sub-Genres - Farce, Spy Comedy  |   Release Date - Mar 4, 1943 (USA - Unknown), Mar 4, 1943 (USA)  |   Run Time - 95 min.  |   Countries - United States  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Hal Erickson

Bob Hope's first starring vehicle for producer Sam Goldwyn borrows the title of Bob's 1942 autobiography They Got Me Covered and very little else. Co-scripted by Leonard Q. Ross (aka Leo Rosten), Leonard Spigelgass and Harry Kurnitz (among many others!), the film casts Hope as Robert Kittredge, the Moscow correspondent for a major American news service, who is fired when he neglects to file a report about Hitler's invasion of Russia. Hoping to get back in the good graces of his boss Norman Mason (Donald MacBride), Kittredge steals another reporter's story about a Nazi spy ring operating in New York. Though officially a comedy, the film is curiously unfunny at times, with Hope playing an unsympathetic, unappealing character who'll step on anyone -- including his long-suffering sweetheart (Dorothy Lamour) and a hysterical kidnap victim (Phyllis Povah) -- to get ahead. Otto Preminger is funnier (perhaps intentionally) as the head Nazi. A few good gags notwithstanding, They Got Me Covered is nowhere near as satisfying as Hope's second Goldwyn effort, The Princess and the Pirate.

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Keywords

agent [representative], espionage, journalism, kidnapping, killing, newspaper, reporter, romance, sabotage