Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Road to Zanzibar Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 17, 2019

Regular readers of my reviews may already be aware that I’m something of a nerd when it comes to popular music, especially the genre which is perhaps pejoratively referred to as “easy listening”. One of the more interesting tidbits I uncovered in my own personal “trivial pursuit” of various tunes in this idiom is that the iconic “Baby Elephant Walk” from Hatari! , one of Henry Mancini’s bounciest and most enjoyable hits, actually had a lyric. The printed sheet music lists the inimitable Hal David as the lyricist, but I’ve frankly kind of wondered if Hal’s brother Mack, Henry’s regular collaborator on such Academy Award winners as “Moon River” and “The Days of Wine and Roses”, actually did the deed. The complete lyric is available for enterprising Googlers, and no matter which David wrote it, I personally wouldn’t put it at the top of either of the siblings’ output. One of the weirdest things in the lyric is a rhyme in the third verse:

If you plan on joining a safari
Don't get dressed for going on a cruise
The thing to carry
Is an extra pair of dancing shoes
Come to the jungle and see the animal attraction
Baby elephants in action walk.

If you’re like I am, that rhyming of “safari” with “carry” kind of sticks out like a sore thumb. I was always taught to pronounce “safari” with the “far” phoneme sounding exactly the same as the word that’s spelled that way (i.e., the opposite of "near"). To make the rhyme work, “safari” needs to be pronounced “sa-fairy” (or “sa-ferry”, if you prefer), which just struck me when I first discovered it and continues to strike me as a little odd. Well, lo and behold, none other than Bob Hope pronounces it exactly that “wrong” way (i.e., “sa-fairy”) in a passing comment in Road to Zanzibar, so maybe this is one of those words where cultural and/or regional pronunciation differences come into play. (As a kid who grew up on reruns of Perry Mason, I can tell you there's another interesting "alternate" pronunciation of a word in that series — listen to how many characters in the show pronounce “Los Angeles” with a hard “g”, something that always made my young ears perk up back in the day.) There is a safari, no matter how it’s pronounced, at the heart of Road to Zanzibar, the sophomore effort in the long running Road series which paired Hope with Bing Crosby, with Dorothy Lamour providing the romantic interest.

As I mentioned in our Road to Morocco Blu-ray review, as patently unprovocative as this series was, there are some elements in some of the films that may strike contemporary sensibilities as maybe at least a little off putting. In this particular enterprise, that may include the illustrations accompanying the credits, which feature Africans who might be charitably described as “Little Black Sambo”-esque. The actual depiction of "African tribesmen" in Road to Zanzibar may also strike some as patently offensive, even if the depictions are obviously played entirely for buffoonish laughs. This film, like Road to Morocco in fact, also tends to make light of being sold into slavery, though in this instance it turns out it’s part of a cheeky sorta grift being arranged by Donna LaTour (Dorothy Lamour) and Julia Quimby (Una Merkel), in what is kind of a “flip side” to the formulation often offered in the Road pictures, namely the unbridled grifting of its male stars. Here Crosby portrays Chuck Reardon, a carnival barker who (of course) bursts into song on occasion. Chuck is the “brains” in an outfit that includes performer Hubert “Fearless” Frazier (Bob Hope, again of course), who is regularly the “victim” in Chuck’s madcap schemes to provide thrill laden “entertainment” to fair audiences.

There are any number of ways that this Road picture either repeats or presages elements from the other Road films, as any fan of this “franchise” will probably already be aware that there was a pretty set template that the films followed, despite individual “differences”. Once again the hapless male duo is on the lam after a perceived calamity, and once again they’re on the hunt for untold riches. Both of those elements are simply setups for a series of gags, some of which are fairly hilarious (a wrestling match between Fearless and a gorilla) and others which may strike some as being pretty dated (the “tribesmen” turn out to be cannibals, and guess who the main course is).

Road to Zanzibar was a massive hit when it was released, but I have to say for me personally it’s probably aged the least well of the early Road pictures. The comedy seems haphazard at times, and even the song score doesn’t quite have the panache of some of the other entries in the series. Still, fans of the star trio and of the Road pictures in general are probably assured of an enjoyable safari, no matter how they end up pronouncing it.

Road to Zanzibar Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Road to Zanzibar is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.36:1. Kind of interestingly (at least to geeks like myself), while there's the Universal logo on the back cover of this release, the film does not start with the Universal masthead before the Paramount masthead. I'm not sure if this was an oversight or perhaps indicates a different provenance for whatever element was utilized for this transfer. While age related wear and tear and outright damage is perhaps not quite prevalent as in at least parts of Road to Morocco , there are persistent scratches and nicks that are evident, and the entire transfer lacks consistent clarity, as perhaps can be gleaned from some of the screenshots accompanying this review, which is the main reason I'm downgrading this score from the one I gave Road to Morocco (of the three Road pictures I've reviewed thus far, Road to Utopia had the best video quality to my eyes). The grain field here is pretty gritty looking a lot of the time and doesn't look particularly organic against lighter backgrounds in particular. There are also moments that were sourced from either stock footage or at least culled from other productions that actually shot in actual locations, and some of that can look fairly ragged. All of this said, this offers at least decent detail levels on elements like the fur of the "gorilla", and contrast and black levels are generally solid as well, though this transfer, like Road to Morocco, struck me as just a bit too dark looking.

Road to Zanzibar Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Road to Zanzibar offers a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track that is reasonably robust in its rendering of both the musical elements as well as the glut of sound effects as our intrepid duo make their way through the wild. There are some variances in quality in some of the effects, with my hunch being they were assembled by sound editors from differing sources. Dialogue makes it through the gauntlet without any major issues. As with some of the other Road pictures I've reviewed, there's some background hiss in evidence, though this film's tendency toward nonstop cacophony on the soundtrack tends to mask it pretty well a lot of the time.

Road to Zanzibar Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Bob Hope and The Road to Success (480i; 14:13) looks at Hope and the Road pictures.


• Command Performance 1944 (480i; 6:47) is a special wartime effort by Bob Hope.


• Road to Singapore Trailer (480p; 2:37)


• Road to Zanzibar Trailer (480p; 2:37)


• Road to Morocco Trailer (480p; 2:12)


• Road to Utopia Trailer (480p; 2:15)

Road to Zanzibar Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Road to Zanzibar just didn't quite appeal to me in the same way that either Road to Morocco or Road to Utopia did, but the film does have some good gags and it's always fun to see the mock rivalry between Hope and Crosby. Video here is a bit ragged, but watchable, and audio is fine if obviously constrained by the recording technologies of the day. The only "new" supplement on this release (i.e., one not included on other Road releases from Kino Lorber) is the 1944 Command Performance, and it's an enjoyable extra, for those considering a purchase.