Themes: Fish Out of Water, Americans Abroad, Cons and Scams
Main Cast: Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Una Merkel, Joan Marsh
Release Year: 1941
Country: US
Run Time: 92 minutes
Plot
The second Bing Crosby/Bob Hope "Road" picture casts Crosby as a penny-ante sideshow promoter and Hope as Crosby's only client, "Fearless Frazier." Under Crosby's tutelage, Hope has been shot from a cannon, zapped in an electric chair and nearly strangled by an octopus. Now they're practically broke and stranded on the African coast. Crosby spends the last of their money to spring helpless Dorothy Lamour from a native slave market. Actually, Lamour and her pal Una Merkel are scamming Crosby and Hope to finance a safari across Africa, so that Lamour can link up with her wealthy fiance in Zanzibar. En route through the deepest, darkest jungle, both Hope and Crosby fall in love with Lamour. But when they find out they're being taken for chumps, the boys leave the safari and strike out on their own. Captured by cannibals, the boys try and fail to win their freedom by having Hope wrestle a particularly grumpy gorilla. Making their escape after teaching the natives their time-honored "Patty Cake" routine, they head for Zanzibar. Once again, Crosby spends his ready money to spring Lamour from her captured-by-slavers con game, obliging Hope, Crosby, Lamour and Merkel to try to earn passage money home by staging a "sawing the lady in half" routine for the locals. Crosby: "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Hope: "If I don't, one of us is going back half fare." Like the earlier Road to Singapore, Road to Zanzibar sticks too closely to the script and plot to allow those inveterate adlibbers Hope and Crosby free reign. Still, there are some choice moments: our favorite bit occurs when Crosby comments to Lamour on the artificiality of movie musicals--whereupon the sound of an orchestra pops up out of nowhere. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Paramount executives owned the rights to a story by Sy Bartlett entitled "Find Colonel Fawcett" about two men trekking through the jungles of Madagascar. They felt that its plot was so similar to the recently released Stanley and Livingstone (1939) that it could not be made as written without seeming too derivative, so they turned the project over to Frank Butler and Don Hartman, the writers on the wildly successful Road to Singapore which Paramount had released the year before. Thus reborn as a comedy and spoof of the safarigenre, the film resembled its predecessor in every important way, with plot taking a back seat to gags (many of them ad libbed), and music. The film was so successful that further "Road to..." pictures were assured.
The film's copyright was renewed in a timely manner by the company which had acquired it. Originally registered for copyright as LP10409 with a declared publication date of April 11, 1941, the continuation of copyright was contingent upon renewal between the 27th and 28th anniversaries of that date. Renewal occurred April 18, 1968, number R434268. Although the film opened in New York April 9, 1941, the renewal is still timely even if the earlier date were considered publication date. Renewal was filed by EMKA, Ltd., which acquired Paramount's classic pre-1950 library in 1957—today, EMKA is part of NBC Universal Television Distribution, and summarily Universal Studios is now the theatrical and home video distributor. The copyright is now scheduled to run until 95 years after the publication date (2036). The film has not entered the public domain.
Songs
"You Lucky People, You", performed by Bing Crosby
"African Etude / Road To Zanzibar", performed by Bing Crosby and a chorus while on safari
