Tony Mastroianni Review Collection
7 Children Share Honors With Hope in His Latest
Cleveland Press 1967
"Eight on the Lam" opens with a sequence that occurs before and during the titles. In it, Bob Hope drives through town in his Volkswagen picking up his seven children and a dog.
It is pleasantly funny the best bit in a movie that goes downhill from that point on.
Hope's movies keep getting slower and slower and this one is the most lackadaisical of all. Aiding Hope are Phyllis Diller with her weed-patch hairdo and Jonathan Winters.
This is Miss Diller's second film with Hope and it is a slight improvement over the first. She and Winters as her boy friend provide a few slapstick moments.
HOPE PLAYS a widower and father of seven who finds $10,000 in a supermarket parking lot. After waiting a decent interval for the loser to claim the money he goes on a spending spree at the same time that a shortage is discovered in the bank where he is a teller.
Accused of embezzlement Hope makes a run for it with his seven children, hence the title.
SHIRLEY EATON decorates the scenery as his girl friend who remains loyal to him. Miss Diller is his babysitter and Winters is a dimwitted detective in pursuit of him.
There is nothing unpredictable about the situations. The children are appealing particularly a five-year-old and they help the movie. But there is a limit to the number of laughs you can get out of a five-year-old and his desire to go to the bathroom.
With family comedies so few and far between, it's a pity this one couldn't have been better.
