En route vers Zanzibar

A previous reviewer said something interesting about this second Road picture being a satire on all those Hollywood jungle epics. A pet peeve of mine has always been that American's concepts of Africa came out of those films. We were not in the imperialist game in Africa which was good, but we also knew nothing about these people, their politics and culture, and in some respects we're paying for that ignorance.

That being said, I can't hold up Road to Zanzibar for that kind of criticism. It's a comedy and a funny one. With the success of the Road to Singapore and the obvious chemistry between Bob and Bing, the boys could now unload their monkeyshines on the audience full blast.

This film marked the beginning of a long association between composer James Van Heusen and Bing Crosby. Van Heusen was replacing Jimmy Monaco as partner to Johnny Burke, lyricist, and this was the first of many Crosby films they would score.

And the songs followed the usual Road picture pattern. Bing starts the movie off by singing You Lucky People You under the opening credits and continuing it in the opening scene at a carnival sideshow, a nice patented Crosby philosophical number. Dotty sings You're Dangerous while trying to vamp Hope the schnook. But then Bing croons to Dotty It's Always You another ballad and finally Hope and Crosby have a patter number Birds of a Feather sung in up tempo as the law is closing in. In that same scene is Eric Blore, better known for Fred Astaire films and he contributes to the clowning with a nice touch.

In a sense this is the first real Road picture because Singapore didn't have a lot of the spontaneity the others do because no one figured it would be such a hit. So get out and hit the Road.

It's funny, but after seeing ROAD TO ZANZIBAR and ROAD TO MOROCCO in the same night, I have a hard time remembering any of the gags in ZANZIBAR. It's not that it's a bad movie, it certainly isn't, but it also isn't as refined and memorable as the next (3rd) installment in the "Road" series.

Starting with this film, Hope and Crosby begin treating each other a lot worse and this dog eat dog style of humor worked well. A great example is when the film begins we find that Crosby has convinced Hope to become "Fearless Frazier"--a daredevil who is always risking his life in a variety of schemes thought up by Crosby.

Although the film begins in the States, it somehow manages to end up in Africa--with all the usual expected clichés and fun. Not surprisingly, they find cannibals and a gorilla (who is the usual "guy in a gorilla suit"--something seen in practically every jungle picture of the era). And, even less surprisingly, we find Dorothy Lamour (along with her pal, played by screen veteran Una Merkel) in Africa--falling for you-know-who! While none of this is fantastic or inspired, the film is very pleasant and fun. The only serious negative is that there are too many songs, plus none are particularly memorable. A decent follow-up to ROAD TO SINGAPORE, though not one of the very best of the series.

Of the comedy teams that made a series of movies in the 1940s and 1950s, Hope and Crosby were probably the most engagingly amusing.

Abbott and Costello were usually silly. Their movies seemed aimed at an audience of children, although some, like "Meet Frankenstein", are outrageous. There was an element of sadism too, with Abbott (always the humorless straight man) slapping the helpless Costello around and snarling at him, a standard relationship left over I guess from vaudeville where clowns batted each other over the head with bladders.

Martin and Lewis were clearly differentiated. Martin was the parent and Lewis was the twelve-year-old child. It all seems a bit much, now.

But Hope and Crosby were the most nearly equal. Crosby was the smooth-talking crooner. Both were cowards but Hope was a braggart too, a stock figure in the comedies of Ancient Rome and afterward. I think the figure was called miles gloriosus. What they had that the other teams didn't, and what's on good display here, is a kidding quality that consists of trying to outwit one another, competition for the girl (Dorothy Lamour), inside jokes, and a kind of comfortably relaxed unspoken friendship that draws the audience in.

In many ways the funniest scene is when Hope and Crosby realize they've been double crossed by Lamour and set out to find her and tell her off. They discover some shreds of her clothing and conclude, mistakenly, that she's been eaten by leopards and carried off. (Hope: "They didn't even leave an ear. What hogs those leopards are.") The two men try to mourn her passing in a sincere and dignified way but their anger at her keeps simmering to the surface. They interrupt their weeping to recite some poetry over her buried clothing but they don't know any poems. Hope starts off with, "A bunch of the boys were whooping it up/ in the Malamut saloon..." Crosby chides him and instead begins to recite "Casey at the Bat." The scene simply cracks me up. Crosby: "She was just a kid." Hope: "We'll miss her. Even though she was WRONG!" When they realize she's still alive they sneer and kick away the dirt from her "grave."

I don't think of "The Road to Zanzibar" as necessarily their best Road picture, although it's right up there with "Utopia" and "Morocco." It was basically their first though. The earlier "Road to Singapore" lacked the lazy improvisational impression that this one has. "Singapore" seems, in retrospect, too well plotted, if you can imagine. You've gotta give these guys a little room to kick out.

The plot's absurd anyway. Africa on the Paramount set, with phony drums and "natives" and a guy in a gorilla suit engaged in a professional wrestling match with Hope. Actually, Hope's pretty amusing. Woody Allen has said that he picked up quite a few of Hope's comic mannerisms to use in his own performances. (See also Hope's "They've Got Me Covered," a classic of its kind, so to speak.) And Crosby is a necessary counterpart to Hope's physicality. The two work very well together.

I'll have to throw in one of their exchanges. The pair find themselves broke and stranded in a small African town.

Hope (gloomily): "This must be the nowhere that people say they're 500 miles from."

Crosby: "Well don't blame me. We wouldn't be here if you hadn't sold the map to that diamond mine."

Hope: "Hah! It's your fault! If you hadn't bought it I wouldn't have had it. And if I didn't have it I couldn't sell it. So if I couldn't sell it, then we wouldn't be stuck here, would we?"

Crosby: "Nope."

Hope (looks doubtful for a moment, thinking hard): "I don't get it."

Their movies also produced a number of popular songs, some of which have become standards. This one has "It's Always You." Others have songs like "Moonlight Becomes You."

You'll probably enjoy this one. If you're in the proper mood, it will crack you up.

I think that Road to Zanzibar is hilarious, one of the best Road movies. The gorilla fight made me laugh the hardest. I would recommend all of the Road movies, if you liked this one. The singing and all of the jokes were great. Bob Hope is one of the funniest people, and in my mind, he is still alive...kinda.

Well, you probably had to be there...I couldn't get into this, the humour seemed to be from another planet. I'm not saying I hated this film, but aside from a split second appearance by a white cockatoo, I was never more than very mildly interested. Curiously the cockatoo was called 'a stale character' yet that adjective could better have been applied to most of the other characters, the jokes and ideas. But it's silly being too rough on this sort of film - it never aims for more than it achieves. Every country that makes films has these sort of production line comedies and they served a purpose. It says a lot about how dominant US culture is that such Z grade stuff from the US is world famous while it is rightly ignored when it comes from other countries. I'm not gibving a rating as I have no idea what to give it. Actually, come to think of it, rating films seems pretty dumb overall.