My Favorite Brunette

My Favorite Brunette is a 1947 American romantic comedy film and film noir parody, directed by Elliott Nugent and starring Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour. Written by Edmund Beloin and Jack Rose, the film is about a baby photographer on death row in San Quentin State Prison who tells reporters his history. While taking care of his private-eye neighbor's office, he is asked by an irresistible baroness to find a missing baron, which initiates a series of confusing but sinister events in a gloomy mansion and a private sanatorium. Spoofing movie detectives and the film noir style, the film features Lon Chaney Jr. playing Willie, a character based on his Of Mice and Men role Lennie; Peter Lorre as Kismet, a comic take on his many film noir roles; and cameo appearances by film noir regular Alan Ladd and Hope partner Bing Crosby. Sequences were filmed in San Francisco and Pebble Beach, California. Plot The story is told in flashback from Death Row as Ronnie Jackson (Bob Hope) relates to a group of reporters the events that led to his murder conviction. Ronnie's a San Francisco baby photographer who dreams about being a real private detective like his office neighbor Sam McCloud (Alan Ladd). One day, he is mistaken for a detective by mysterious lady in distress Carlotta Montay (Dorothy Lamour), who claims that her wheelchair-using husband was kidnapped at the pier as they arrived from overseas. A sinister figure (Lorre) listens at the office door. Carlotta gives Ronnie her address, a coded map, and a $5,000 ring as payment, telling him that no one must know he's a detective. Ronnie hides the map in the cups next to his office water cooler. He then drives to the address, which is a mansion down the Peninsula. Kismet (Peter Lorre) greets him at the door, lifting his handgun. Carlotta tells Ronnie that the missing man is her uncle, not her husband. He entered the country on some secret mission, she says. The mansion belongs to Major Montague, Carlotta says, her uncle's former partner. Major Montague enters the room and tells Carlotta she has a phone call. When Carlotta leaves, Montague tells Ronnie that he had Kismet follow Ronnie from his office; he knows that Ronnie is a private detective. He tells Ronnie that Carlotta is mentally ill and introduces him to a wheelchair-using man in the next room as Carlotta's uncle, who obviously hasn't been kidnapped. Ronnie tells Montague that Carlotta had given him a map to hold.