Movie review – Road #2 – “The Road to Zanzibar” (1941) ***

The second Road film is more geared to the talents of the stars – Hope is more cowardly – and also far more polished – it’s a real “road” story, with the duo playing a pair of shonky carnies travelling through Africa. For the first 15 minutes or so it’s a rather sophisticated Africa (Cape Town, Nairobi) then they wind up in the interior where they are conned by a pair of girls (one half of whom is Lamour, very pretty – the other is Una Merkel) and wind up in search of a diamond mine.
The playing between the two leads is superb, a marvellous thing to watch, and is the most enjoyable aspect of the movie. There’s a rather “off” scene where Bing sings while being carried in a chair by black natives but mostly fun is poked at the stereotypes (the boys wind up as Gods for a time but they don’t get away with it for long). There’s a hilarious wrestle between Hope and a gorilla, and a charming song in a lagoon between Cosby and Lamour. Lamour disappears for most of the last 20 minutes or so – the Road films were really boysie movies. Pleasingly, no one ever grows – in the Seinfeld parlance, there was no hugging, no learning.