The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

I give up, was this supposed to be a comedy? You would think with Bob Hope and Katherine Hepburn in a film that it would be worth seeing but this is simply a travesty. Actually, I don't think I've ever run into a film in which all the posts for it in the reviews section on IMDb uniformly call it a bad picture. The movie merits a 5.6 rating from all (710) viewers as I write this, but just for the heck of it I did a quick average of the 'stars' given by the folks writing comments on it, and I come up with a 3.25. My rating isn't going to sway that either way.I can't even imagine what the film makers might have been thinking, before, during, and after this picture was made. Hepburn's Russian was fingernails on chalkboard to my ear, and try as they might, the chemistry that was supposed to exist between the stars just didn't work for me. The gags fell flat and even Hope's one liners lacked punch. At least he managed to invoke Crosby when the Judo Sleepwalker (????) Sutsiyama (Tutte Lemkow) called him 'Dog Nose', but even that wasn't funny.Quite honestly, and I make an effort at this, but I can't think of any redeeming feature of the film that might even remotely recommend it. But even as incomprehensible a romantic match that Hope and Hepburn seemed, Major Chuck Lockwood's fiancé Lady Connie (Noelle Middleton) might have even been worse. Considering how bizarre the whole concept of the story was, you'd think she could have cracked a smile now and then. You know, I'm beginning to think it might have been true when Captain Kovelenko (Hepburn) said at one point - "This would not have happened if Stalin were alive".

Hard to believe this was written by Ben Hecht but he gets sole screenplay credit on screen though IMDb throws in a nod to Harry Saltzman, not previously known to me as a writer but had he written the whole thing it would be quite believably. Neither is Hecht celebrated as a gag-writer and it's crystal clear that Hope used his clout to insert typical Hope-type one-liners from his stable of writers. The film was shot in 1956 and perhaps significantly Silk Stockings (Cole Porter's last Broadway musical), a musical version of 'Ninotchka', opened on Broadway in 1955. Whilst it's true the main plot has been jettisoned there are still links notably a strong Russian female venturing into the West and being 'Westernised' via an item of clothing, in Garbo's case a hat, in Hepburn's a negligee. Apart from the two leads the film is fleshed out with a B-team of British journeymen, Sid James, Richard Wattis, etc with the seriously wooden Canadian Paul Carpenter in a hefty supporting role. More value as a novelty entry than anything else.

I was born too late to appreciate Bob Hope, since his talent showed mostly in presenting and stand-up. He has mostly left behind a less-than-stellar movie career, as evidenced by his highest rated movie (in IMDb) being The Muppet Movie, and even that's not nearly high enough to be in the Top 250. I enjoyed his Fancy Pants, but I have to say that was largely due to the presence of Lucille Ball.I am, however, a mad fan of Katharine Hepburn and eagerly devour all of her movies. But great as she is, she still has some clunkers in her repertoire, and unfortunately this is one of them.Egads, the Russian accent. I think that once she realized how bad it sounded (not for lack of trying), she just went all out to ham up the performance. There's chemistry between the two legends that are Hepburn and Hope, but the script lets them down, and the lines mostly fall flat. It doesn't even venture into camp, in which the movie's worth a watch just because you want to see Hepburn play Chinese (Dragon Seed) or a mountain girl (Spitfire). I would pretty much only recommend this for die-hard Hope or Hepburn enthusiasts (like me).

This film had the potential to be much better. The charm and talent of Hepburn and Hope, the conflict of attitudes between East/West, Democracy/Communism, male/female. However, none of these elements work quite as well as they might have done.Despite being rather over the top at the start, Hepburn is very good sporadically (the Russian accents and characters in general are stereotypical caricatures). Her androgynous persona is well cast, although used rather crudely at times - the film has a nervously defencive and jokey treatment of burgeoning feminist ideas, probably typical of the era.Unfortunately, Hepburn's character is often relegated to be the foil for Hope's one liners. These are sometimes funny, but tend to predominate over characterisation, narrative, and the film in general, giving the whole piece an oddly disjointed, flat feel. With a more pacey and intelligent script, the likable charm of Hope and the feisty emotion of Hepburn could have made a quirky, witty film. Instead, this rather dated film remains an interesting, although sometimes uncomfortable watch, as a snapshot of attitudes in the 1950s, and the unusual pairing of these two stars.