You have to love Bob Hope's singular ability to be behind the times in terms of getting young teen idols to give his films a little youthful appeal. Two years after the British invasion where the music scene would irrevocably be changed, Hope casts Frankie Avalon and Tuesday Weld in I'll Take Sweden considerably after their time as teen idols had come and gone.
In fact the film never got closer to Sweden than Big Bear Lake and Lake Arrowhead the two California locations chosen to represent the pretty parts of Scandinavia. Which is a real pity because Stockholm is known as the Paris of the north and has reputation as a beautiful city. I wonder why producer Edward Small and Hope played on the cheap and didn't bother to go to Sweden to film this picture.
Hope's in a role James Stewart played better in Take Her She's Mine as the harassed father of a shapely teenage girl. In case you're wondering, Tuesday Weld is the shapely teenage girl. Hope disapproves of boyfriend Frankie Avalon whom he thinks of as a beach bum dead head, living in a trailer at the beach and no prospects for a job. He decides on impulse to take a job in Sweden with his company and relocate.
It starts to work out real well and Weld's found herself a nice Swedish boy in Jeremy Slate. Widower Hope's not doing too bad either with Dina Merrill. But when Hope finds out about the Scandinavian sexual attitudes, this red state American is saying 'not with my daughter, you Viking Casanova'.
I'd have rated this film higher had we actually seen a bit of Sweden here. But for all this it just turns into a typical bedroom comedy as Hope and Merrill find out that Slate and Weld have registered in the same hotel for the same reason and Hope goes tearing around the place looking to save Weld from a fate worse than death. Oh, and he's brought Frankie Avalon over from California to help finding new virtues in him he hadn't seen before.
You know what the dumbest thing in the film was. The fact that a no tell hotel in Sweden people register there as Mr.&Mrs. John Smith for anonymity. You'd think they'd register with the Swedish equivalent of same in Sweden.
In fact the film never got closer to Sweden than Big Bear Lake and Lake Arrowhead the two California locations chosen to represent the pretty parts of Scandinavia. Which is a real pity because Stockholm is known as the Paris of the north and has reputation as a beautiful city. I wonder why producer Edward Small and Hope played on the cheap and didn't bother to go to Sweden to film this picture.
Hope's in a role James Stewart played better in Take Her She's Mine as the harassed father of a shapely teenage girl. In case you're wondering, Tuesday Weld is the shapely teenage girl. Hope disapproves of boyfriend Frankie Avalon whom he thinks of as a beach bum dead head, living in a trailer at the beach and no prospects for a job. He decides on impulse to take a job in Sweden with his company and relocate.
It starts to work out real well and Weld's found herself a nice Swedish boy in Jeremy Slate. Widower Hope's not doing too bad either with Dina Merrill. But when Hope finds out about the Scandinavian sexual attitudes, this red state American is saying 'not with my daughter, you Viking Casanova'.
I'd have rated this film higher had we actually seen a bit of Sweden here. But for all this it just turns into a typical bedroom comedy as Hope and Merrill find out that Slate and Weld have registered in the same hotel for the same reason and Hope goes tearing around the place looking to save Weld from a fate worse than death. Oh, and he's brought Frankie Avalon over from California to help finding new virtues in him he hadn't seen before.
You know what the dumbest thing in the film was. The fact that a no tell hotel in Sweden people register there as Mr.&Mrs. John Smith for anonymity. You'd think they'd register with the Swedish equivalent of same in Sweden.