The Road to Hong Kong Reviews

The last of seven "Road to" pictures and an awkward attempt at re-creating the fun of the previous films, this one has a few funny moments, but it's so filled with inside jokes that a lot of it will be lost on anyone who hasn't seen the other six movies in the series. It was made in England, which was a plus since there are a number of good British actors involved, including Sellers in a brilliant cameo as an Indian doctor. As usual, Hope and Crosby are vaudevillians. They've given up the stage in favor of confidence work and are in India, attempting to sell their "Fly-It-Yourself" space kit for interplanetary travel. The cops get onto them, and Hope falls during the arrest attempt and is taken to the local hospital where Sellers examines him and determines that amnesia has set in. Crosby doesn't believe it until Hope admits that he doesn't remember what women are. That convinces Crosby. They learn of a potion that can cure Hope, but it can only be found in the Tibetan lamasery where Aylmer is the head lama. The drug is a success: Hope has total recall. They go to the local airport to return to the US and meet Collins, a spy for a group of intellectuals who plan to conquer the world by taking over space. She thinks Hope is also an agent and shows him a stolen Russian formula for a secret rocket fuel. Hope glances at the equation, and it is immediately committed to memory. The scientists, led by Morley, capture Hope and Crosby and put them aboard a rocket in place of monkeys. The rocket takes off, goes around the moon, then comes down, and the boys are not harmed. Morley makes plans for their deaths, but he decides to give them one last taste of happiness and places them in a harem. They escape into the back alleys of Hong Kong and lurch into a nightclub where Lamour is singing (as herself), and she helps them get away from Morley's gang. The bad guys are captured, but Hope, Crosby, and Collins (who has now joined them, as she realized Morley was nuts) stumble into a rocket that goes up (in a very long sequence) and lands on a remote planet. Once there, they are met by Sinatra and Martin as two space travelers who came via another route. The silly, inane script is saved only by the choreography by Baker and Meyers (who were married at the time but used different names) and the songs by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, which include "Teamwork" (sung by Hope, Crosby, Collins), "Let's Not Be Sensible" (sung by Crosby), "It's the Only Way to Travel" (sung by Hope, Crosby), "We're on the Road to Hong Kong" (sung by Hope, Crosby, Collins), and "Warmer Than a Whisper" (sung by Lamour). Panama's direction lacked pace. You know you're in trouble when the funniest sequence is due to a guest star (Sellers).