My Favorite Brunette is a 1947 comedy parodying the Film Noir genre, directed by Elliott Nugent and starring Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour. It's quite similar to My Favorite Blonde, one of Hope's earlier films.
Ronnie Jackson (Hope) is a baby photographer who dreams of being a detective. He gets his chance when Baroness Carlotta Montay (Lamour) mistakes him for a detective and hires him to find her missing "husband" (actually her uncle). Ronnie soon finds himself getting mixed up with the missing man's sinister former business partner and his henchmen (Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney Jr.).
Tropes:
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Ronnie makes several aside comments to the audience. In the final scene, he insults Harry with "You'll take any sort of part!"
- The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In: Every time Kismet throws his knives, they land this way.
- Brick Joke: Ronnie gave Mrs. Fong the wrong photograph. This is what leads to him being cleared of murder.
- The Cameo: Alan Ladd as Sam McCloud,note Ronnie's detective friend, and Bing Crosby as Harry,note the executioner at San Quentin.
- Celebrity Paradox: Played for Laughs when Ronnie tells McCloud he wants to be a detective "like Alan Ladd". Guess who plays McCloud?
- Creator In-Joke: During Crosby's cameo, Lamour gives her love interest from the Road to ... films a "who is that?" stare before finally having her attention dragged back to Hope.
- Diagnosis: Knowing Too Much: The conspirators tell Ronnie that Carlotta's story is a delusion. Later, she's locked in a sanitarium to keep her from talking.
- Dumb Muscle: Willie is strong enough to bend iron bars out of shape and dumb enough to be constantly fooled by Ronnie.
- Femme Fatale: Parodied, of course, by Carlotta.
- Gallows Humor: The scenes in the prison are full of Ronnie making jokes about his impending execution.
- How We Got Here: The film starts with Ronnie on Death Row, telling a group of journalists how he got falsely accused of murder.
- Mistaken for Crazy:
- Montague tells Ronnie that Carlotta is crazy. She isn't, but Ronnie misinterprets her actions to mean she is. It doesn't help that she's waving a knife around while talking to him.
- Later, Ronnie and Carlotta are both locked up in a sanitarium. Played with, because the people who locked them up know they're sane, but they want everyone else to believe they're mad.
- Mistaken Identity: How Ronnie gets involved in the case.
- Replaced with Replica: Ronnie manages to make a record of the spies, but one of the spies switches it for a swing music record.
