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. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide