Main Cast: Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Lynne Overman, Eddie Bracken, Clarence Kolb
Release Year: 1941
Country: US
Run Time: 82 minutes
Plot
Bob Hope plays a famous movie star who does his best to avoid the pre-war draft, but ends up in uniform all the same. Hope marries Dorothy Lamour, the daughter of Army colonel Clarence Kolb, in hopes that this union will help him sidestep military service. Stuck in boot camp, Hope is a class-A screw-up until redeeming himself during a sham battle--though his "heroic" commandeering of a tank began as yet another boo-boo. Still not entirely certain that Hope could carry a film by himself, Paramount teamed him with Eddie Bracken and Lynne Overman--a sort of Abbott and Costello plus One. Despite the efforts to make Bob Hope part of an ensemble, it is clear from the first frame to the last who is truly the star of Caught in the Draft. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Don Bolton (played by Bob Hope) is a famous Hollywood star who tries to get married in order to avoid the draft, as he feels it will interfere with his career. He falls for Antoinette, a colonel's daughter (played by Dorothy Lamour) and in an attempt to impress her he pretends to enlist in the army, though it turns out that he has in fact enlisted for the real thing, along with his agent and assistant.
Bolton is keen to impress both Antionette and her father during training, however his skills as a soldier prove to be abysmal.
Caught In The Draft is also the title of a BBC Radio 2 documentary written by Terence Pettigrew and presented by Michael Aspel. The programme, which traced compulsory military service from its origins in World War 2 until it ended at the beginning of the 1960s, was a nostalgic reminder of what National Service was like. Taking part in the show were Bob Monkhouse, John Dunn, and Leslie Thomas, author of The Virgin Soldiers
