Sorrowful Jones paired Lucille Ball with Bob Hope, as a bookmaker who took in a little girl left in his care.
Sorrowful Jones was released in 1949, directed by Sidney Lanfield and based on a story by Damon Runyon. Bob Hope played Sorrowful Jones, a Broadway bookmaker who was given custody of a young girl, Martha Jane, after her father was killed. Lucille Ball played Gladys O’Brien, a singer and Jones’s girlfriend, who helped him to look after the child.
The film mixed comedy and sentiment, as Jones, who had never cared for anyone, learned to care for Martha Jane, while also trying to avoid gangsters and the police. Ball’s Gladys was warm and practical, and her scenes with Hope showed the comic partnership that had made them a popular pairing.
Sorrowful Jones was a success, and it remains a fondly remembered example of Ball’s work just before television. It showed her as a leading lady in a popular comedy, and it came only two years before I Love Lucy changed her career.