The first 'Road' movie in the series (and the first one I saw) was The Road to Singapore.
It was a pretty fledgling effort. In this second flick, the bird has learnt to fly. The characters played by Bing Crosby and Bob Hope are more sharply defined, the gags come easier and the rapport between the two seems far more real and spontaneous.
Bing is the wisecracking brains of the unit; Bob is the fall-guy - timid if not downright cowardly, and... well, not exactly the brightest guy on the block.
The boys are a Vaudeville team. Bing is the brains, Chuck Reardon, who dreams up the wonderful stunts such as a human cannonball or man locked up inside trunk thrown into icy lake. Bob is Hubert 'Fearless' Frazier. He actually gets to do the stunts, while Bob watches and counts the money.
For reasons too complicated to explain, Bing and Bob find themselves in Africa, where they fall prey to a couple of charming con-women, Donna Latour (Dorothy Latour) and Julia Quimby (Una Merkel). And they have various encounters with animals, of the real and stuffed variety, and almost end up in the cooking-pot of a tribe of cannibals. All good sexist and racist stuff from another age.
Yes, this is an improvement over the first 'Road' movie, but I'm afraid it's still a flick only for the real afficianados of either vintage cinema or of Bing and Bob. It is, in a word (or two), pretty lame. I was able to bear it because I enjoy Bob Hope's persona, which finds its best expression in his classic Paleface - and 'Fearless' Frazier is a prototype 'Painless' Potter from that flick.
As in the previous film in the series, the songs given the great Groaner, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour, are strictly forgettable cinema fodder. The 'Road' series were obviously too popular in their own right to waste good musical numbers on.
This is a very pleasing transfer of this black and white movie. There is quite a deal of grain, but the studio shots show up with very natural tones and contrast levels.
There is a lot of rear-projection going on here, as Bing and Bob experience the perils of Africa second-hand. The clarity of the transfer makes it simple to spot the techniques. But that doesn't invalidate the movie - no-one was meant to believe for one moment that the boys were ever likely to be run down by that charging rhino.
The soundtrack - basic two-channel mono - has been well restored, and is free of any sort of crackle or distortion. And while that makes dialogue crisp and clear, it makes one regret that this comedy-musical in facts boasts no decent music at all.
