“THE
PATTY-CAKE CHRONICLES, PART TWOâ€
By
Raymond Benson
The
Bing Crosby and Bob Hope “Road to…†series began in 1940 with Road to
Singapore (click here for review), a landmark musical-comedy
that teamed the dueling popular radio personalities for the silver screen.
Road
to Zanzibar continues
the successful formula begun in Singapore. Two playboys (Crosby and
Hope, whose character names change with each movie, although their “charactersâ€
are always the same) find themselves traveling to some exotic locale in order
to either escape a woman, gangsters, or pursue some con job, only to get mixed
up in a farcical plot with an equally exotic woman (always Lamour). There are a
few songs performed by both men or solo or with Lamour, comic hijinks
(especially from Hope), and even some action and adventure. A running gag
throughout the series was a bit that Crosby and Hope did—playing “Patty-Cake,
Patty-Cake,†reciting the verse and slapping their hands in front of
adversaries as a distraction—and then surprising the bad guys with sudden
punches, thereby starting a fight and the means to escape.
In
this popular sequel, Crosby is “Chuck†and Hope is “Hubert†aka “Fearless
Frazier.†They work in circus sideshows with Crosby conning the populace
regarding Fearless’ abilities as, first, a human cannonball, which results in a
mishap that sets the entire circus ablaze. They try again at other circuses
with different acts, until one day an eccentric diamond mine baron (Eric Blore)
sells Chuck the deed to one of his African properties. It turns out it’s a
fake, of course, so Hubert pawns the deed off to someone else, who insists—with
threatened violence—that the duo lead them to the mine. The boys escape and
hastily board a boat bound for Africa (it had to happen, right?). There, they
are hoodwinked by Julia (Una Merkel) to help her save her roommate Donna
(Lamour) from “slave traders,†when in fact it’s a con between Julia, Donna,
and the slave traders to split the proceeds, repeatedly, from unsuspecting
buyers. This leads to a safari across Africa with Chuck, Hubert, Donna, and
Julia on the way to fame and fortune, when, in reality, the purpose is to
reunite Donna with a man to whom she’s engaged. Of course, Chuck and Donna fall
in love, Hubert at one point believes it’s he that she’s fallen for, and
there is a threesome, and sometimes a little foursome, romantic entanglement.
The climactic sequence involves the boys being separated by the safari and
captured by hostile, Tarzan-style natives, who plan to first pit
Hubert/Fearless against a gorilla (an actor in a suit) to prove the boys are
gods; failing that, the boys will be eaten by the tribe.
Each
“Road†picture is something of a spoof of a specific Hollywood genre. In this
case, Zanzibar is a parody of the types of jungle safari movies like Stanley
and Livingstone and Tarzan titles. Every cliché in the book is thrown in
and lampooned.
Like
Road to Singapore before it, Road to Zanzibar is total nonsense
with some musical number decoration. As it was made in 1941, Hollywood was
still in the era when African-Americans were underused in productions. They
only got work playing maids, butlers, porters, and… African natives. Looking at
the film today, the final sequence produces some wince-inducing moments, but at
least Crosby and Hope don’t darken their skin to disguise themselves as they
did in Singapore.
There
are funny moments, to be sure, and Hope especially was then proving to
audiences that he was a superb talent. Arguably, the “Road†pictures would not
have been as successful without his presence.
Kino
Lorber’s new Blu-ray looks quite good and comes with English subtitles for the
hearing impaired. Two previously issued supplements accompany the film: a short
documentary on Hope and the Road pictures, with appearances by Phyllis Diller,
Randall G. Mielke (author of The Road to Success), and Richard Grudens
(author of The Spirit of Bob Hope)—this same extra is also included on
the Road to Singapore disk, and a 1944 featurette on Hope on “Command
Performance,†a short that went out to the troops to accompany movie
screenings. The theatrical trailer to this and other Kino Lorber titles round
out the package.
For
fans of Hope and Crosby and of a golden era of Hollywood that had a long way to
go before becoming “woke,†Road to Zanzibar has its cinema history
charm.
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