A Global Affair

Bob Hope's movie career really tailed off sometime around 1960, as he made one subpar comedy after another. An example of this that showed up on TCM some time back is A Global Affair.

A Global Affair is one of those 1960s films that opens with a terribly dated MOR song. After that, Lisette (Michèle Mercier) is leading a tour of the United Nations building. Just at the end of the tour, she discovers that sombody has abandoned a baby in the building! There's a note attached to the baby, and when Lisette takes the baby to the boss, it's revealed that the mother left the baby there after having heard the radio speeches delivered by UN official Frank Larrimore (Bob Hope).

Now, it seems like the obvious thing to do would be to call the local authorities both to help find the biological mother as well as to find someone suitable to take care of the baby. But the UN building is technically sovereign territory, or at least not US territory, and the UN jealously guards its jurisdiction, so they're not about to call the New York police. Instead, they give the baby to Frank for him to take care of until they can find a suitable solution. Of course, that comes with its own set of problems.

Frank is a bachelor, so there's no woman to be the mother of the child. And then there's the fact that he lives in an apartment building that's for the childless, and having a child would break the lease. Frank calls in his friend Randy (Robert Sterling), and he invited a bunch of nubile young women over, theoretically in the hopes that a suitable mother can be found, but more because Randy is just into beautiful young women. Lisette sees the party going on, and she's pissed.

The next day when Frank takes the baby to the UN building on his way to work, the subject of what to do with the baby is discussed. Segura (Nehemiah Persoff), the delegate from Peru, rightly realizes that the baby is liable to cause an international incident, although he does admire the things Frank has had to say about children's rights. So Frank can keep the baby a little while longer until a decision is reached.

The eventual idea is for all the member states of the UN to put forward proposals as to why they'd be the best place for the kid, and somehow somebody will make the right choice about which country gets the child. At the same time, the Soviets send over a pediatric researcher, Sonya (Lilo Pulver), to research the kid.

A Global Affair goes on like this, combining unfunny humor with a large dollop of UN propaganda. Thankfully, it only runs for a brief 84 minutes. Some people may like A Global Affair, but I'd rather recommend Bob Hope's earlier movies.