Musical Monday: Road to Zanzibar (1941)

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It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

This week’s musical:
Road to Zanzibar (1941) – Musical No. 416

Studio:
Paramount Pictures

Director:
Victor Schertzinger

Starring:
Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Una Merkel, Eric Blore, Douglass Dumbrille, Iris Adrian, Lionel Royce, Buck Woods, Leigh Whipper, Ernest Whitman, Noble Johnson, Joan Marsh, Luis Alberni, Ruby Dandridge (uncredited)

Plot:
Chuck (Crosby) and Fearless (Hope) are carnival performers traveling through Africa. Chuck always has a gimmick that is at the expense of Fearless’s health and safety, from being shot out of a cannon to wrestling an octopus. One of their antics causes them to go on the lamb when they burn down the carnival and the police are looking for them. They continue to get into more trouble when they meet Charles Kimble (Blore), who sells them a diamond mine. After paying Kimble all of their money, they learn Kimble is eccentric and the mine is a fake. They then run into two women in distress – Donna Latour (Lamour) and Julia Quimby (Merkel) – who may not need as much help as they think. The four then travel through the jungle in search of Donna’s sick father, or so they say.

Trivia:
• The second of the “Road” films starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour.
• Wrestlers George Zaharias, Jim Londos, Hardboiled Haggerty and Golden Terror signed a resolution against the Motion Picture Industry. The professional wrestlers were protesting a scene where Bob Hope’s character wrestles a gorilla in the film. The wrestlers said it belittled the “Flower of American Manhood,” belittling the wrestling profession, according to an April 18, 1941, newspaper article “Taking a Fall Out on Hollywood.”
• The original script was called “Find Colonel Fawcett,” which was originally shelved because it was too similar to STANLEY AND LIVINGSTON (1939), according to a Turner Classic Movies article.

Highlights:
• The scene with “It’s Always You” performed

Notable Songs:
• “Road to Zanzibar” performed by the chorus and Bing Crosby
• “You’re Dangerous” performed by Dorothy Lamour
• “It’s Always You” performed by Bing Crosby

My review:
After the success of ROAD TO SINGAPORE (1940), a new comedic duo was born with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, with Dorothy Lamour as the female lead.

A little over a year after SINGAPORE was released, a second film featuring Crosby, Hope and Lamour was released. While it was the second time they went on the “Road,” it wasn’t a sequel and they played different characters.

“This wasn’t a sequel in any way,” Dorothy Lamour said in an interview with Ron Miller and James Bawden. “It was a script that was already rewritten and they tweaked it to make a Road picture. We played different characters.”

In ROAD TO ZANZIBAR (1941), the plot is quite convoluted. Chuck (Bing Crosby) and Fearless (Bob Hope) are carnival performers, fleeing on the lamb after they burn down an entire carnival. As they are traveling through Africa trying out various death-defying acts, they run into several characters that get them into trouble:
– While down on their luck, they meet Charles Kimble (Blore), who says he owns a diamond mine. Turns out he is eccentric and does not have a diamond mine, which gets Chuck and Fearless into trouble when they sell the worthless mine.
– They meet Julia Quimby (Una Merkel), who says she and her friend Donna Latour (Dorothy Lamour) have been sold into slavery and needs their help. It turns out to be a ruse when Donna wants to use the boys to be taken to her rich boyfriend.

These stories are all somehow connected, though it all feels a little convoluted. In the interview with Ron Miller and James Bawden, Dorothy Lamour said ROAD TO ZANZIBAR was much better than ROAD TO SINGAPORE.

However, the second “Road” film also adjusted Lamour’s billing from second to third. Hope apologized to her at the start of filming, to which she said she hadn’t noticed yet, according to Lamour.

ROAD TO ZANZIBAR is chock full of character actors, including Una Merkel and Eric Blore, who are a welcome sight in any film. Douglas Dumbrill is also in the film but has a very small role.

This film is less of a musical than ROAD TO SINGAPORE, and our first musical number isn’t performed until 38-minutes in. But Crosby and Lamour warble enough tunes, to make this a musical in my book.

One of the more humorous moments in ZANZIBAR features a song. Lamour and Crosby are floating down river in a canoe, and discussing how they once saw a movie where an orchestra starts playing in the middle of the wilderness. They then proceed to run their hand through the water, which makes a harp play, and a bird sings in the sound of a flute before Crosby launches into “It’s Always You.” It’s quite funny, and even New York Times film critic, Bosley Crowther, enjoyed it so much that he mentioned it in his review.

ZANZIBAR is starting to get the feel of a “Road” film, but still feels a little different as the film series is starting to get into its groove. It’s still a good time, though it could use more songs and more Eric Blore.

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