Road Show

This is another under-appreciated Hal Roach comedy, mixing screwball scenarios with slapstick antics. I never miss an Adolphe Menjou movie if I can help it, and he's great here as an eccentric industrialist (and/or recreational con man). He and John Hubbard escape from a mental health resort and join up with a traveling carnival run by the very lovely Carole Landis. Hubbard is secretly a millionaire, looking for true love after dodging gold-diggers. Patsy Kelly is Landis's pal, George E. Stone plays an amorous Indian, Charles Butterworth is Menjou's wealthy nephew, and Willie Best plays his usual stereotype role, but is very funny. All this and Hoagy Carmichael's catchy tune "Calliope Jane". A cute movie, lots of fun.

See also: TURNABOUT (1940) and THE HOUSEKEEPER'S DAUGHTER (1939), all directed by Roach and featuring Hubbard and Menjou.

One of the most bizarre movies I have ever seen. I checked it out because I read about Willie Best in Quentin Tarantino's new book 'Cinema Speculation' and you really cannot find many movies that he was in. Besides an astoundingly racist bit ('The food is over there, the watermelon is over there...' this whole story is just too weird, even for a screwball comedy. I was sad to read of the fate of Carole. Landis after I watched the movie. I might have to watch this again and I am not sure I can believe what I actually watched last night. I am not all that sensitive to comedic bits that offend the current 'woke' mindset in 2023, but this movie really pushes the envelope.

I have to agree with the two previous reviewers. I can't believe this film hasn't got more of a reputation than it does. It's a non-stop laugh from start to finish.

The players in Road Show look like they're having a marvelous time in this film. Hal Roach must have kept a really loose and happy set for these people to have put in the work they did.

Millionaire playboy John Hubbard gets cold feet at the altar and his gold digging bride gets him committed to an asylum. While there he meets Adolphe Menjou who's another millionaire there for a rest cure from his grabby family.

The two make an escape and wind up in a carnival owned by Carole Landis and from then on it's one mad plot situation after another.

Adolphe Menjou was a player of extraordinary range. In silent films with that waxed mustache he was usually villains, but in sound he played a good range of serious characters. Yet he had a funny side to him that when it was displayed could be hilarious. We saw more than hints of it in films like Broadway Gondolier and Gold Diggers of 1935. But here as the center of the film, he really explodes on the screen. I've never seen him funnier.

Possibly because it did not star any of the great comic actors, just a whole lot of good players doing their shtick, Road Show does not stand out in the Hal Roach list of comedy masterpieces. That's a pity because this shows what Roach could do without people like Laurel and Hardy to star in a film for him.

Don't ever miss this if it's broadcast again.

With the help of the eccentric Captain Calloway, a millionaire escapes from the asylum to which he was committed by his jilted bride-to-be and falls in with a travelling circus. A modest but enjoyable Hal Roach comedy in which anonymous leading man John Hubbard largely plays second fiddle to lead support, Adolphe Menjou. Hubbard's reaction when coming face-to-face with a lion is priceless, however...

I really thought that it was impossible for a film starring Adolphe Menjou to be this bad. Menjou was capable of ably playing a variety of characters from villain to tarnished hero, and he was also very able at playing comedy. However, even the talented Menjou cannot save this film. The plot is that young wealthy playboy Drogo Gaines (John Hubbard) gets cold feet on his wedding day, and decides to pretend he is insane. His jilted bride retaliates by having him committed. In the asylum, Gaines meets Carleton Carroway (Adolphe Menjou), and together the two escape and join a traveling carnival. In time, and through a series of comic misadventures, Gaines falls for Penguin Moore (Carole Landis), the beautiful leader of the carnival.

The problem is that besides Menjou, the players are just not that talented, and the jokes are just not that funny. Also, neither the overall plot nor the mismatched romance is very compelling. Cut down to 20 minutes or so, this might have been an OK 1940's comic short, but at 70 minutes it just seems to drag on forever. Hal Roach was capable of much funnier stuff. I would definitely pass on this one.