Customer Reviews

Road to Zanzibar

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Bing and Bob's second outing is about as much fun as you can have at the movies. Bing's "Rhythm on the River" director of the previous year, Victor Schertzinger, allowed the boys to ad-lib so much screenwriters Don Hartman and Frank Butler must have been frantically turning pages trying to see where that line came from! The end result of Bing and Bob's great chemistry was a delightfully funny film with a couple of nice songs and a formula that lovely Dorothy Lamour and the boys would make legendary.

The film has a hilarious opening as Fearless Frazier (Bob) is about to be shot out of a cannon at a carnival by his pal Chuck (Bing). When things go south and the carnival burns to the ground, they take the show on the road. Chuck always has the ideas, as usual, which have "Fearless" doing everything from wrestling an octopus to becoming the human bat. One of Chuck's greatest ideas is to put Fearless in a lead coffin and submerge it in water. As for how Fearless is to escape, well Chuck hasn't quite worked out all the details yet!

And so it goes. There is some usual nonsense about a diamond mine the boys get hoodwinked into buying and in turn snooker someone else into buying, but it's only an excuse for the boys to end up in darkest Africa with the gorgeous Lamour. Donna Latour (Lamour) and her pal Julia (Una Merkel) are running a con pretending to be captured by slave traders when Julia discovers all that dough Chuck and Hubert (Fearless!) made off their diamond mine map and the girls decide to take them on safari, and take them for a ride!

Lamour is sexy and mischievous in her knee high socks and gorgeous hats but begins to worry her pal Julia when she starts to fall for one of the boys. Fearless thinks it's him, of course, when she gets his motor going singing "You're Dangerous" on a moonlit night. But the audience knows it's Chuck, even if there is a complication involving the rich guy named J. Theodore Bradley she's suppose to marry.

Some of the best moments come when the boys get lost and discover some drums in an old cave and begin to have fun. You can guess the rest! Will the boys be supper for the natives in the interior of darkest Africa? Will Lamour go with her heart and go for Chuck? It's certainly fun finding out as Bing and Bob throw the script out the window, filling Zanzibar with their easygoing charm and funny one-liners.

Dorothy Lamour is really pretty here and was the perfect choice to partner with the boys. They just seem like they belong together, both then and now. Victor Young does the music score and Bing gets to sing to Lamour while they're rowing on the river. Watching this one is a fun way to remeber Bing and Bob, who are no longer with us. But as long as great films like this one are available, their memories will remain forever.

This road picture is my off again, on again pick for the best one. Utopia and Zanzibar both are excellent.

The first half hour of this movie just flies by everytime I watch it. It always seems like the pace slows down once they hook up with Dorothy Lamour. Nothing against Dottie, per se, but she is not funny. Great actress, great singer, but she couldn't get a laugh if her life depended on it. Some pretty good lines are given to her, and they fall flat every time.

But the boys are in top form here. Great scene at the night club where they are forced to do an impromptu dance and comedy routine.

The plot doesn't always make sense, but it doesn't seem to matter. I read where the competition between Bing and Bob to be the funnier guy was pretty intense during the filming of Zanzibar ... and maybe that's why the final product is so very funny.

A lot of laughs in The Road to Zanzibar.

I personally think that this movie is better than "Road to Morocco", the movie some claim to be the best of the "Road" pictures. It managed to get an Oscar nomination for it's screenplay! Crosby plays Chuck Reardon and Hope is "Fearless" Frazier, that right there is funny. Hope? Fearless! You must be joking lol. They are a couple of con men who perform varies "stunts" at a circus. Hope has to wrestle snakes and bears, and finds himself as the "human bullet". He gets shot out of a cannon. And, that's when all their trouble starts. They burn down the circus lol. And are on the run from the police. I love old-fashion comedies like these. Then again, my opinion may be a bit bias, since I grew up watching these type of movies. I just wish Hollywood could make more films like them. Once Hope and Crosby are on the run, guess who they run into? Dorothy Lamour! Legend has it Lamour had to literally fight to say her lines. Hope and Crosby we're ad-libing so much, sometimes the director had no idea what was going to happen! This is such a great silly, amusing film. You can tell everyone had a good time making this. Hope and Crosby started to play "in jokes" on us. By making several references that THEY ARE IN A MOVIE! All the way through the "Road to Zanzibar" I had a hugh smile on my face. And, how could one not enjoy this film. We have Crosby here to sing a few songs. Hope is here for the laughs, and boy can he provide them! And Lamour is here to keep me up at nights lol. It's just a winning combination. There are a lot of funny moments in this film, but, I don't want to spoil them by giving them away. Buy or rent this film if you're ever a bit down. Or you just want a good laugh. Una Merkel co-stars and Eric Blore has a small bit part (as usual).

I love the Hope and Crosby Road movies. I have them all and have watched them several times over the years. Sure some of it might be predictable but I don't care they are funny.

Road to Zanzibar was quite interesting, a fun spoof on African safari pictures, complete with strangely painted natives and stock footage.

We start this African adventure with Bing and Bob conning their way across the Continent with phony carnival schemes until one day they accidentally burn down a carnival tent!

Eric Blore bails them out. He is quite a comedian, having appeared in a couple of Fred Astaire films, but his talent is not taken advantage of.

Dorothy Lamour and Una Merkel play the con-girls who out con the cons and Bing and Bob are inadvertently bankrolling a safari to Zanzibar -- a place they never actually reach, but that's fine.

The plot has more meat to it than the other Road films I've seen and the comedy routines are pretty good. The cannibal scene and the "patty cake" joke are played to the hilt.

Bing's crooning down a river is a pretty thing, though the songs themselves are silly and somewhat forgettable. I thought the wrestling with the gorilla stunt was great -- although the stand-in doesn't look much like Hope!

Recommended.

One of several 'road' films starring the trio of Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour. I grew up watching these movies and loved them all (which I now have!). Lots of classic laughs and zaney gags! Watch with some friends!

This is not the best of the "Road" pictures, but it's still a lot of fun to watch the chemistry between Hope and Crosby. The plot is a bit preposterous, and just how dumb can Hope's character be to be anything but Fearless? However, the hijinks are first rate scams, and there are nice turns by Dorothy Lamour and Una Merkel. The tunes are not the best of the "Road" series, although Bing's voice always seems stronger in films than in comparably dated records. Get this one not because it's a classic (not quite), but just because it's fun.

ROAD TO ZANZIBAR has always been one of my two or three favorite Road movies, in part because it's more of a comedy and less of a musical than many entries as well as having the bonus of having that great comedienne Una Merkel along for the ride. And the great Dorothy Lamour is incredibly sexy here (wasn't she always!!)

I'm happy that the DVD version of ROAD TO ZANZIBAR pictures Dorothy Lamour - unfortunately it is the ONLY DVD of the series by Universal to do so. It is an improvement on the VHS which did not picture her, nor did the other videos. She was an EQUAL star to Hope and Crosby - one of the biggest women stars of the era. She has a lot of fans even today who are probably passing on the prerecorded tapes to this series because of this slight. Wake up Universal and reissue this series picturing the third STAR of these movies on the boxes!

I watched this when I was a kid and I loved it. My girlfriend is from a foreign country so she doesn't get the movie very well, but I love

No one dose it better then Bob Hope and Bing Crosby! I love this movie.If you like classic hollywood you will love this one.