The first thing you have to do with this picture is get past the idea that Hope and Crosby would have been part of a carnival tour in Africa. And this was back in 1950 when the continent would have been more primitive than it is today. It didn't seem to me there would have been a whole lot of paying customers to see circus acts on the Dark Continent, but who knows?
This picture has more of the familiar Hope and Crosby camaraderie that we expect with the 'Road' pictures, that concept hadn't been fully worked out yet with the debut of "Road to Singapore" which came out the prior year. Ben Mankiewicz, host of the Turner Classic Movie channel mentioned that both actors hired their own writers to punch up their parts in the script, sometimes leaving Dorothy Lamour at a loss when expecting her cues. Their ad-libbing often discarded original lines in the story, but knowing that, it didn't appear to me that Lamour was all that bothered by it. She rolled with the punches pretty well if you ask me.
Interestingly, the Bingster doesn't share any tunes with his partner in this one, although ex-slave girl Donna (Lamour) gets up close and personal with Fearless Frazier (Hope) while doing the 'You're Dangerous' number. Can you imagine how uncomfortable she could have made him if she were wearing a sarong? Because she didn't, I had to create that mental image myself.
I guess it was pretty standard for jungle movies to introduce a gorilla at some point, so with that in mind, Fearless gets locked in a cage with one and has to wrestle his way out. I could be wrong on this, but to my mind, this is the first time I ever saw a monkey get monkey flipped. Hope looked pretty good in his cage match, leading me to conclude that he might have made a pretty good pro-wrestler himself. He'd have to pack on a few more pounds though.
As they did in all their Road pictures, Hope and Crosby get the most mileage they can out of being con men with pretty funny results here. One of their staples was the old patty cake routine, which didn't work the first time here against a hulking guy named Solomon (holy cow - that was pro-wrestler Jules Strongbow!), but later on they used the gimmick to become a big time hit with the natives.
This picture has more of the familiar Hope and Crosby camaraderie that we expect with the 'Road' pictures, that concept hadn't been fully worked out yet with the debut of "Road to Singapore" which came out the prior year. Ben Mankiewicz, host of the Turner Classic Movie channel mentioned that both actors hired their own writers to punch up their parts in the script, sometimes leaving Dorothy Lamour at a loss when expecting her cues. Their ad-libbing often discarded original lines in the story, but knowing that, it didn't appear to me that Lamour was all that bothered by it. She rolled with the punches pretty well if you ask me.
Interestingly, the Bingster doesn't share any tunes with his partner in this one, although ex-slave girl Donna (Lamour) gets up close and personal with Fearless Frazier (Hope) while doing the 'You're Dangerous' number. Can you imagine how uncomfortable she could have made him if she were wearing a sarong? Because she didn't, I had to create that mental image myself.
I guess it was pretty standard for jungle movies to introduce a gorilla at some point, so with that in mind, Fearless gets locked in a cage with one and has to wrestle his way out. I could be wrong on this, but to my mind, this is the first time I ever saw a monkey get monkey flipped. Hope looked pretty good in his cage match, leading me to conclude that he might have made a pretty good pro-wrestler himself. He'd have to pack on a few more pounds though.
As they did in all their Road pictures, Hope and Crosby get the most mileage they can out of being con men with pretty funny results here. One of their staples was the old patty cake routine, which didn't work the first time here against a hulking guy named Solomon (holy cow - that was pro-wrestler Jules Strongbow!), but later on they used the gimmick to become a big time hit with the natives.