Tonight's Movie: Bedtime for Bonzo (1951) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

I grew up hearing plenty of jokes about BEDTIME FOR BONZO (1951) on THE TONIGHT SHOW with Johnny Carson, inasmuch as the show's director, Frederick De Cordova, also directed the movie.

The fact that California governor turned President Ronald Reagan starred only added to the opportunity for late-night jokes, of course -- but the reality is that BEDTIME FOR BONZO, just released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber, is actually a pretty cute little family movie.

Reagan plays Professor Peter Boyd, who is engaged to Valerie (Lucille Barkley). Valerie's father (Herbert Heyes), the university dean, is aghast to learn that Peter's father was a criminal and wants them to break the engagement -- because who knows how their children will turn out?

Peter wants to do an experiment to show that how a child turns out is based on environment rather than genetics, with a chimpanzee named Bonzo as the "child." Peter hires young Jane Linden (Diana Lynn) to serve as Bonzo's "momma," and they try to teach Bonzo the difference between right and wrong and how to live as a member of a family.

It's all fairly nutty, and you can see the Reagan-Lynn romance coming from a million miles away, but it's an entertaining, if overly simplistic, 83 minutes. Reagan and Lynn are appealing, and I particularly suspect that children, even in today's era, would find Bonzo's antics fun to watch.

The supporting cast includes Walter Slezak, Herb Vigran, Jesse White, and Edward Gargan.

The university exteriors incidentally, were filmed at L.A. City College.

The print is from a brand-new 2K master. Carl E. Guthrie's black and white cinematography is fairly bland, in the unmemorable style of his work on some of Universal's Francis the Talking Mule films, but the print and sound are fine. This was a nice way to catch up with the movie at long last.

Disc extras consist of the trailer; a gallery of four additional trailers for films available from Kino Lorber; and a commentary track by Eddy Von Mueller.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray.

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