Violence/Gore: Abbott convinces Costello he should blow his brains out. A corrupt individual uses a gun on our romantic leads. A group of thugs is beaten by Abbott and Costello with coconuts, sticks and other assorted items. Abbott smacks Costello around. Costello falls a lot. An angry native slips Costello a mickey.

Sex/Nudity: The romantic hero initially surrounds himself with a busload of beauties. The boys’ excursion to a tropical island leads to a cornucopia of shapely ladies who are fond of the dancing and revealing (for 1942) outerwear.

Best Line: Costello: “Oh! Look, mister, tell the head man, would you please, tell him I’d like to die my own way.” L. Atwill: “How do you want to die?” Costello: “Of old age.”

Score:

This go-round, Bud plays Algy Shaw and Costello is Wellington Phlug, ugly monikers worthy of a W.C. Fields flick. They’re a pair of Chicago bus drivers who break regulations to drive a rich playboy to California. The bus company doesn’t take kindly to this concession to wealth and sends a detective out to serve them with a writ. After shrugging off that guy, the boys wind up as hired hands on the rich playboy’s yacht and promptly steer him off course, nearly causing the deaths of all involved. Fortunately, in the nick of time, a beautiful tropical island is sighted and the starving crew go off to find a land containing politically incorrect natives (aka California actors in tan face), sexy sirens and former romantic lead, and frequent classic Universal horror actor Lionel Atwill, who naturally is evil. During this part of the picture, Costello gets courted by a very attractive native girl (and a good singer/dancer to boot), the boys run into temple-raiding thugs, and a very tepid romantic subplot works its way out weakly. PARDON MY SARONG features Abbott and Costello at the height of their first wave of popularity. This was their most successful picture to date and the second highest grossing film of 1942…which begs the question, why have we never heard of it?

The first half of this film goes a long way in answering that. For thirty excruciating minutes, the film lumbers about with the boys on auto-pilot, rehashing the same time-killing antics that lost their freshness half way through their first film some six pictures back. Even Preston Sturges regular, the perennially cranky and usually hilarious William Demarest, can’t give this film a jolt during this painful period. The only thing that makes this part of the film worth slogging through are two phenomenal musical numbers by the tremendously talented The Four Ink Spots, which features some top-notch dancing by the Tip, Tap and Toe dancers. Besides these all-too-brief musical interludes (easily accessed through the chapter stops), it’s all groans and pulling teeth.

Then the boys get lost at sea and Abbott convinces Costello he should kill himself so that the rest of the crew can survive. This dark moment in the A&C catalogue marks the turning point, and the film does a 180 and suddenly becomes one of the boys’ more endearing works.

Once on the island, the humor and the pace picks up. Lionel Atwill may have been at the end of his career, but he was always a treat to watch (as fans of SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN, MARK OF THE VAMPIRE, and Josef von Sternberg’s THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN will attest). His role as the evil villain lends the proceedings an out-of-place sense of prestige.

But it’s the boys who drive the second half. The tropical island filled with politically incorrect tan-faced natives is a great setting for some their best moments, including a ‘blow the whistle’ piece, a ‘tree of truth’ sequence, and most amusingly, a bit involving the word ’stinker’ that Monty Python would be proud of. There’s also a great dance number to a tune called “Vingo Jingo” to sweeten the second half pot.

The film is directed by Erle C. Kenton of THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (an early version of H.G. Wells’ THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, featuring a youngish Charles Laughton) fame. He also directed the boys’ next picture, WHO DONE IT?

DVD Extras: The film has been released on DVD as part of Universal’s excellent “The Best of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.” The set consists of eight films spread out over two double-sided discs. This film’s extras include subtitles in English, French and Spanish, and production notes.

AH