Road Show (1941)

Just perfect...

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Director: HAL ROACH. Associate directors: Gordon Douglas, Hal Roach, junior. Screenplay: Arnold Belgard, Harry Langdon, Mickell Novack. Based on the novel by Eric Hatch. Photography: Norbert Brodine. Film editor: Bert Jordan. Art director: Charles D. Hall. Music: Georgie Stoll. Songs: Hoagy Carmichael (music), Stanley Adams (lyrics). Special effects: Roy Seawright. Producer: Hal Roach. Copyright 9 January 1941 by Hal Roach Studios, Inc. Released through United Artists. 87 minutes. SYNOPSIS: When he fails to go through with a wedding, a handsome, personable millionaire is confined in a lunatic asylum.COMMENT: As in the later Hi Diddle Diddle, the Menjou character is a bogus colonel type here (or is he?). Indeed this movie is almost as high-spirited as Diddle, though the players don't practice double takes, nor do they sling raspberries at the audience, nor do they draw attention to the casting of the director's girl friend. John Hubbard tries hard, but seems rather stiff compared to Dennis O'Keefe (who would have made a much better job of the role), but if he misses out on the scenes with the lunatics (his playing is both too pat and too flat), he does have some fun with the lions. Certainly the lovely Carole Landis seems prettier and much less formal than Martha Scott. Most of the laughs, however, are generated by Menjou, Kelly, Best and Butterworth, assisted by a goodly array of cameo turns from the likes of Shemp Howard, Jack Norton and Clarence Wilson. Admittedly, Butterworth disappears for most of the movie, but fortunately contrives to return for the grand climax. Most of the songs — pleasant enough, if rather ordinary — are supplied by The Charioteers. Roach's direction appears remarkably fluid at times. Road Show was presumably designed as just that: a smooth-as-silk prestige attraction. Photography is appealing and production values rate high.

This is another under-appreciated Hal Roach comedy, mixing screwball scenarios with slapstick antics. I never miss an Adolphe Menjou movie if I can help it, and he's great here as an eccentric industrialist (and/or recreational con man). He and John Hubbard escape from a mental health resort and join up with a traveling carnival run by the very lovely Carole Landis. Hubbard is secretly a millionaire, looking for true love after dodging gold-diggers. Patsy Kelly is Landis's pal, George E. Stone plays an amorous Indian, Charles Butterworth is Menjou's wealthy nephew, and Willie Best plays his usual stereotype role, but is very funny. All this and Hoagy Carmichael's catchy tune "Calliope Jane". A cute movie, lots of fun.See also: TURNABOUT (1940) and THE HOUSEKEEPER'S DAUGHTER (1939), all directed by Roach and featuring Hubbard and Menjou.

I really thought that it was impossible for a film starring Adolphe Menjou to be this bad. Menjou was capable of ably playing a variety of characters from villain to tarnished hero, and he was also very able at playing comedy. However, even the talented Menjou cannot save this film. The plot is that young wealthy playboy Drogo Gaines (John Hubbard) gets cold feet on his wedding day, and decides to pretend he is insane. His jilted bride retaliates by having him committed. In the asylum, Gaines meets Carleton Carroway (Adolphe Menjou), and together the two escape and join a traveling carnival. In time, and through a series of comic misadventures, Gaines falls for Penguin Moore (Carole Landis), the beautiful leader of the carnival.The problem is that besides Menjou, the players are just not that talented, and the jokes are just not that funny. Also, neither the overall plot nor the mismatched romance is very compelling. Cut down to 20 minutes or so, this might have been an OK 1940's comic short, but at 70 minutes it just seems to drag on forever. Hal Roach was capable of much funnier stuff. I would definitely pass on this one.

When millionaire society playboy Drogo Gaines (John Hubbard) backs out of his marriage in front of the minister by pretending to be crazy, his society gold digger fiancé has just the answer. She has him committed. He can't talk his way out of this one. He meets fellow patient Colonel Carleton Carroway, of the caraway seeds Carroways (Adolphe Menjou, who is top billed). After several amusing situations involving loony jokes, the two break out. They find themselves in a traveling road show company of good-hearted, small-time entertainers that the local police always want to close. After songs, jokes, romance and an apparent shared taste for salting their apple pie slices, Drogo and road show manager Penguin Moore (Carole Landis) bring the road show to the old manse and find true love. Drogo's money and the Colonel's fast talking save the carnival. Along the way we've had a chance to see the carnival in action, a fine comic riot and some first-class second bananas doing their stuff...people like Patsy Kelly, Charles Butterworth, George E. Stone, Florence Bates...and Menjou. In his day he was a first-class comic actor. Just watch him in Roxie Hart. Unfortunately, there's also some "ya suh, boss," quivering-knees-in-front-of-the-lion, fried-chicken humor involving Willie Best. Why push on through this pleasant, unexceptional time killer, even if it was co-written, or, more probably, had some of the jokes developed by Harry Langdon? Two words: Hoagy Carmichael. He wrote three songs for this movie. If you're as much a Carmichael fan as I am, you'll know the chances of ever hearing these three if you don't watch the movie are probably zero. "Yum Yum" (20 minutes in) and "Calliope Jane" (34 minutes in) are performed by the four-member African-American close-harmony group, The Charioteers. They're excellent upbeat songs. Carmichael wrote the lyrics for both. "I Should Have Known You Years Ago" (58 minutes in) has a nice melody of yearning, dubbed by Martha Mears for Landis, but is marred by the conventional, syrupy lyrics of Harris Robison.