Road to Zanzibar *** (1941, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Una Merkel, Eric Blore) – Classic Movie Review 6979

‘ IT’S THAT GLEESOME THREESOME AGAIN! Giving you your worth in mirth! Topping all the fun in Road to Singapore!’

Director Victor Schertzinger’s gleesome 1941 comedy is the funny sequel to Road to Singapore (1940), in which Bob Hope (as Fearless Fraser) and Bing Crosby (as Chuck Reardon) are a couple of carnival con-men trekking through Zanzibar in search of a diamond mine, with witty Dorothy Lamour (as Donna Latour), Una Merkel (as Julia Quimby) and Eric Blore (as Charles Kimble) notably tagging along.

The highlights are Bob and Bing’s freewheeling gags, Crosby’s singing and Hope wrestling a gorilla.

Frank Butler and Don Hartman’s amusing screenplay is based on the story Find Col Fawcett by Don Hartman and Sy Bartlett.

Also in the cast are Luis Alberni (as Proprietor of Native Booth), Douglass Dumbrille (as Slave Trader), Iris Adrian (as French Soubrette), Robert Middlemass (as Police inspector), Lionel Royce, Buck Woods, Noble Johnson, Norma Varden, Paul Porcasi, Leigh Whipper, Ernest Whitman, Joan Marsh and Georges Renavent.

Road to Zanzibar was not planned as a sequel to Road to Singapore (1940). It was first pitched to Fred MacMurray and George Burns, who rejected it, and only then was it offered to Hope and Crosby after a Paramount official remembered that Road to Singapore had done ‘quite well’ and they ‘seemed to work well together’.

It is followed by Road to Morocco (1942).

The seven-film ‘Road to …’ series is: Road to Singapore (1940), Road to Zanzibar (1941), Road to Morocco (1942), Road to Utopia (1946), Road to Rio (1947), Road to Bali (1952) and The Road to Hong Kong (1962).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6979

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