A bonus for Australians: it starts in Melbourne “the last outpost of culture in the Western world” (there is a map of Australia with signs “road to Zanzibar”, “road to Utopia”, etc) where Bing and Bob and doing their two man show. Of course they’re in trouble with the locals – a young lass (played by a starlet with an American accent) and her family, who I think are supposed to be famrers. Bing and Bob make a run for it – one of the farmers throws a boomerang at them, which Bob catches. They then stowaway on a train and get busted; they buy some false Ned Kelly like beards and go to an unemployment office in Darwin where a prince is looking for deep sea divers.
This film is sometimes said not to be as good as the others in the series, but to be honest I couldn’t really ascertain a drop in quality – the banter between the leads (mostly mean, lots of teasing) is still funny, two of Hollywood’s richest and most long-lasting stars revelling in each other’s company (one scene they actually kiss, albeit accidentally). Lamour doesn’t have much of a role, just being a Balinese princess without doing any manipulations herself. I will admit, it does taper off in the last third after the villain as gone and it’s just the three of them hanging around on an island. But it does recover for the end, which features the finale (common in island films) of our heroes being thrown into a volcano – years before Joe vs the Volcano. And the final gag is a cracker.
No comments:
Post a Comment