The Road to Moscow

Bounding off a Soviet TU-104 jet airliner at Moscow airport, Comedian Bob Hope got a bleak stare from a heavily bearded Russian when he asked: "How're you fixed for blades?" So it went for his seven-day visit to shoot film for his April 5 NBC show. Hope's Western brand of humor was largely wasted on the Russians, even when translated, but his running quips on Soviet life traveled well to the folks back home.

After a visit to the tomb of Lenin and Stalin in Red Square, Hope cracked: "It wasn't a bad show, but what do they do for an encore?" On shopping at the GUM department store: "The men look like they're wearing George Raft's old suits. The women, of course, are more in style. They've been wearing sack dresses for years." On watching voters in the U.S.S.R.'s one-party election: "Let's hurry back to the hotel and get the first returns." On drinking vodka: "Now I know why they got their Sputniks up first. I'm surprised the whole country didn't go straight up years ago." On the censorship: "The Soviet censor read all my jokes. I haven't seen him since. I understand he is doing my act in Leningrad."

Hope's gags, some carried daily by I.N.S. under his byline, drew laughs from an audience of 300 at the U.S. Embassy residence, where a Russian camera crew of 23 filmed his monologue for next month's TV show. But the Russian--who put censors on his film and will have their embassy go over it again in the U.S.-- were miffed at some of the cracks, notably when Hope said that he had seen "lots of TV aerials in Moscow but no sets." To Hope's quip that "the Russians are so proud of their Sputniks that anybody without a stiff neck is considered a traitor," a Soviet official commented dourly: "Treason is a very serious charge in the Soviet Union."

At week's end, Comedian Hope was back in the U.S., and demonstrating that the road to Moscow had not taken his eye off U.S. foibles. Announced he: "That summit meeting is definitely going to be held. The problem is, who's going to caddy?"

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