The Paleface

The Paleface is a 1948 comedy western from Paramount, directed by Norman Z. McLeod. Bob Hope plays Peter Potter, a mild-mannered frontier dentist known as "Painless" who would rather head back east than face the dangers of the territory. Jane Russell plays Calamity Jane, a sharpshooter offered her freedom by the government in exchange for tracking down the outlaws selling guns to the local tribes. When the undercover agent assigned to pose as her husband is killed, she recruits Potter as a stand-in. He is mistaken for a hero after an attack on their wagon train, becoming a target for the criminals while he and Jane grow closer.

The screenplay is by Edmund L. Hartmann and Frank Tashlin, with Robert L. Welch producing. The credited cast runs to 26 players, including Robert Armstrong, Iris Adrian, Bobby Watson and Jackie Searl. The film came late in a directing career that had begun with Horse Feathers and Alice in Wonderland in the 1930s and continued through Jackass Mail and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty in the 1940s, with Casanova's Big Night following in 1954.

On IMDb it holds 6.6 out of 10 from around 5,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.1 from a much smaller pool of 81 votes. A critics' rating of 6.9 from nine reviews places it slightly above the audience scores, suggesting a warmer reception among reviewers than among the wider viewing public.