You’d think Bing Crosby and Bob Hope would be too old to believably play double-crossing song and dance men, but the two of them pull it off surprisingly well – when you think about it both had a twinkle in their eye all their life. (Hope has aged better than Crosby).
The guts of the plot has Hope trying to recover his memory, and getting involved in a spy plot. The girl is bewilderingly played by Joan Collins, instead of Dorothy Lamour (who does have a cameo – but why not the role? It isn’t as though Collins was a big star in 1962 – maybe the boys just wanted to prove they could do it without Lamour – or they felt she was too old. But when Crosby croons with Collins it seems off and while Collins tries she doesn’t have the zing of Lamour).
You’ve got to give the film some points for getting on the spy spoof so quickly – that didn’t really happen in a big way until 1965 but the Road kids were straight on to it. They even predicted some things that would later become Bond film staples, such as a mysterious wealthy organisation based in an underwater lair, lots of henchmen, and adventures in outer space. This does mean, however, that the film has a different feel to the others – the emphasis is on gadgets and sci-fi rather than the exotic. Put it in colour and replace Bob and Bing with Dean Martin and you have a Matt Helm movie… until it winds up on another planet and just gets silly.
Much of humour comes from guest stars: Peter Sellars is very funny doing his Indian doctor routine (are we allowed to laugh at that again?), ditto Robert Morley as an early template for Dr Evil, and a very funny cameo at the end. There is a throwback to some of the less pleasant aspects of the Road movies in one scene where Hope, pretending to be Chinese, harasses a Chinese restaurant owner (played by a non-Chinese actor).
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