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it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

If you like the other films in the "Road Series", you will probably like this one too. The plot is thoroughly ridiculous, of course, more so than the others, I would say. But the mayhem and occasional songs are much more important than the very flimsy plot of this farce. The screenplay can be usefully divided into several segments, the first of which finds the boys(Bob Hope and Bing Crosby) associated with a circus(in equatorial Africa?). Bing is the barker and Bob is the performer of various very daring stunts. Bob has had it when Bing suggests he wrestle a giant octopus. Unfortunately, their pyromania burns down the Big Top, sending them running for cover. Thus begins the second segment when they buy the worthless deed to a gold mine, then unload it on another. Next, they get involved with two footloose women who con them out of some money buying the freedom of one, supposedly being sold as a slave. These two women(Dorothy Lamour and Una Merkel) will be involved with them for most of the rest of the film. They get the boys to agree to finance a safari into darkest Africa, not telling them that actually they are heading for Dorothy's wealthy boyfriend. When they discover that they are being used, they quit the safari and head back. The next segment mainly has them interacting with a huge population of natives, who debate whether they are gods or scoundrels, fit to be boiled in their huge cauldron. The final, all too brief, segment has the boys and girls reunited, apparently where they began the Safari, anxious to return home, but in need of money to purchase two more tickets for the 4 of them.There is a huge gap in the story where the boys somehow escape from being boiled alive and make it back to safety. At the same time, somehow the girls make it back to the same spot, lacking any money to pay the porters and other workers of the safari. I understand that the desired run time was being approached, and a quick ending was needed.One of the more hilarious scenes is when Bob is made to wrestle a supposed gorilla as a test of whether the boys might be gods. The circus tent fire looked realistic, with people and circus animals running around screaming.Incidentally, Zanzibar is a group of small islands off the coast of Tanzania. I never had the impression that we were there. Oh well, the boys never made it as far as Singapore in "The Roald to Singapore".

Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour are at it again in the second film of the "Road Series" which follows "Road to Singapore" produced a year earlier. However, although the three actors have returned their characters are completely different. For example, Bing Crosby plays a con-man named "Chuck" who is constantly coming up with dangerous acts to use in a circus. Bob Hope plays his best friend "Fearless Frazier" who is generally the one who risks his life in whatever dangerous scheme Chuck has concocted. Yet for all of their experience in the confidence field they somehow end up being taken for a ride by a woman named "Donna Latour" (Dorothy Lamour) and her friend "Julia Quimby" (Una Merkel) who manage to convince them to take them on a long safari through the African jungle but conveniently leaves out the real reason Donna and Julia want to get there—so that Donna can marry a young millionaire. But what none of the four realize is just how dangerous this safari ends up becoming. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that I thought this movie was a little bit better than its predecessor due in large part to the better coherence between the scenes. Likewise, the action was a little better as well. In any case, this was an entertaining comedy for the most part and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

This is the first Road picture I remember seeing as a kid on television, and my sister and I didn't get most of the Forties humor, but our Dad was beside himself at the part where the cowardly Bob Hope ( playing "Fearless Frazier", the courageous stunt man) has to wrestle a gorilla in a cage, while the natives place bets on the outcome. Dad was roaring with laughter at the way that both Hope and the gorilla were using classic wrestling moves on each other, which can still be observed in any pro wrestling match today, including body slams, head locks, Irish whips into the turnbuckle and pile drivers.Bob Hope has some of his best moments in this picture, including tickling a lecherous bidder at the slave auction at opportune moments, so the bad guy won't be able to increase his price for Dorothy Lamour; shrieking over a an obviously rubber snake he finds in his bed, wisecracking with Crosby as he 's about to be shot out of the cannon at the carnival as " The Living Bullet". Crosby is the usual smooth talking con artist, who persuades Hope to attempt such risky endeavors as being the Human Bat, flying on man made wings, the Human Dynamo, strapped in an electric chair with a light bulb in his mouth, etc. By the time Crosby tries to persuade Hope to wrestle an octopus, Hope has figured out it's better to turn down these great ideas.Romantic complications ensue when the boys get entangled with a couple of female sharpies on their way to marry a rich man. Una Merkel is the brains and Dorothy Lamour the beauty as they scheme their way across Africa. Hope is reluctant to join the safari, until Crosby points out that they're already on the lam from both the police for accidentally burning down the carnival, and a couple of menacing characters they sold a phony diamond mine to.Music, sight gags, ad libs and sheer silliness provide lots of entertainment. The parts with the natives are stereotypical, but already spoofs in 1941 of the serious clichés found for years in Tarzan movies. At one point, the native witch doctor argues with the chief, with subtitles in English, debating the possibly divine origins of the two explorers. The shaman points at Bob Hope and announces via subtitle " If he's a god, I'm Mickey Mouse!" Sit back, relax and enjoy some old fashioned movie fun, with Hope Crosby and Lamour in their prime.

As it turned out this was the second in a franchise that no one thought of as a franchise at the time. Hope and Crosby had been teamed with Dorothy Lamour in what was intended as a one-off, Road To Singapore, and when Fred McMurray and George Burns passed on this someone remembered that Road To Singapore had made a little noise at the box office so why not team Hope and Crosby again and throw a 'road' into the title to remind fickle audiences of Singapore. Things were beginning to fall into place but we weren't there yet; Hope and Crosby were now established as performers with Crosby as the pitch man and Hope performing the life-threatening stunts and what, in retrospect, turned out to be the main ingredient - the songs - was also in place. With Fred and Ginger no longer a team at RKO someone at Paramount clearly figured there was a gap in the market and you can almost hear the thinking ...'what if, they weren't two DANCERS, but two SINGERS, then we add an extra 'girl' to the mix as a foil for Hope, Helen Broderick is working so why not Una Merkel, she did all right in Destry Rides Again opposite Micha Auer...' Actually the foursome worked quite well but it's the threesome we remember from the rest of the franchise (excluding the last, Hong Kong). We were also becoming used to the kind of jokes that let the audience in - the native chief tells Hope he will be fed to a giant bird which gives Crosby a chance to say 'this time the bird gets you'. If there are not too many lines as on the money as that the one thing that endures is the songs; on Singapore Johnny Burke was teamed with Jimmy Monaco but he'd now formed a partnership with Jimmy Van Heusen that would last throughout the forties and into the fifties and during that time they wrote not only all the other 'Road' pictures but also about 95 per cent of Crosby musicals. They started well here with three fine numbers, You Lucky People You (if you ever wondered where cockney comedian Tommy Trinder got his catch phrase from look no further), You're Dangerous, and the standout ballad It's Always You, plus the almost obligatory title number and it is these songs that will endure even if the films themselves tend to date.