Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

classicsoncall 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.

tavm A year after first teaming in Road to Singapore, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour appear together again in Road to Zanzibar. Hope and Lamour have switched billing this time-him now second and her third-which remains for the rest of the series as distributed by Paramount. Also, things are allowed to be a bit more wacky unlike in the previous one with some great visual humor concerning Bob getting mixed up with a gorilla. Ms. Lamour also gets to have some fun especially when she seems to seduce Hope in one scene when singing to him. Speaking of Bob, he's not so smart here unlike last time since here he's clueless thinking Dottie's in love with him not realizing she referring to someone else (not Bing) unlike in the last one when he realized she's in love with Bing's character there! Also, this is the only one of the Road pictures in which he doesn't share a number with Crosby. In summary, while Road to Zanzibar is a little better then Singapore, it's still a little uneven when trying to consistently get laughs. Still, it's often enjoyable enough so on that note, it's still worth a look. Next up, Road to Morocco.

wes-connors After burning down the Big Top, singing carnival showman Bing Crosby (as Chuck Reardon) and human cannonball pal Bob Hope (as Hubert "Fearless" Frazier) take their act on the road. Traveling around Africa, the two men become involved in a phony diamond mine, and eventually find Dorothy "Dottie" Lamour (as Donna Latour) masquerading as a slave girl. She and partner Una Merkel (as Julia Quimby) have ulterior motives, but love may change La Lamour. Later, hungry natives mistake chubby Mr. Hope and Mr. Crosby for Gods, and then plan to eat them. Our co-stars contemplate their future as burps. The songs and material in this second "Road to…" picture are noticeably weak. The stunt doubles are simply noticeable.*** Road to Zanzibar (4/11/41) Victor Schertzinger ~ Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Una Merkel

writers_reign As it turned out this was the second in a franchise that no one thought of as a franchise at the time. Hope and Crosby had been teamed with Dorothy Lamour in what was intended as a one-off, Road To Singapore, and when Fred McMurray and George Burns passed on this someone remembered that Road To Singapore had made a little noise at the box office so why not team Hope and Crosby again and throw a 'road' into the title to remind fickle audiences of Singapore. Things were beginning to fall into place but we weren't there yet; Hope and Crosby were now established as performers with Crosby as the pitch man and Hope performing the life-threatening stunts and what, in retrospect, turned out to be the main ingredient - the songs - was also in place. With Fred and Ginger no longer a team at RKO someone at Paramount clearly figured there was a gap in the market and you can almost hear the thinking ...'what if, they weren't two DANCERS, but two SINGERS, then we add an extra 'girl' to the mix as a foil for Hope, Helen Broderick is working so why not Una Merkel, she did all right in Destry Rides Again opposite Micha Auer...' Actually the foursome worked quite well but it's the threesome we remember from the rest of the franchise (excluding the last, Hong Kong). We were also becoming used to the kind of jokes that let the audience in - the native chief tells Hope he will be fed to a giant bird which gives Crosby a chance to say 'this time the bird gets you'. If there are not too many lines as on the money as that the one thing that endures is the songs; on Singapore Johnny Burke was teamed with Jimmy Monaco but he'd now formed a partnership with Jimmy Van Heusen that would last throughout the forties and into the fifties and during that time they wrote not only all the other 'Road' pictures but also about 95 per cent of Crosby musicals. They started well here with three fine numbers, You Lucky People You (if you ever wondered where cockney comedian Tommy Trinder got his catch phrase from look no further), You're Dangerous, and the standout ballad It's Always You, plus the almost obligatory title number and it is these songs that will endure even if the films themselves tend to date.