Fairly terrible comedy co-written by Norman Panama and Melvin Frank, the final "Road" movie for co-stars Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. Central Intelligence mistake the bantering duo for Russian astronauts; turns out they're just petty hucksters trying to make a dishonest buck, tangling with spy Joan Collins and getting mixed up in moon-mission espionage. Best part of film is the first twenty or thirty minutes, which includes a funny bit by Peter Sellers and an excursion to a Himalayan lamasery. Collins (with a beehive hairdo) is attractive, but her role makes no sense (why is she passing along secret documents to Hope at all when she's already working closely with Robert Morley, the mastermind behind the nefarious plot?). Panama, who also directed, tries out different themes (amnesia, space travel, Morley's underwater base of operations) all with the same bumbler's approach, but it's no use; the hectic globe-trotting and overly-complicated narrative are both strenuous and dull. The star cameos and songs keep it somewhat afloat, and the production isn't bad (despite sloppy over-dubbing to cover up several instances of apparently risqué humor), but the plot is for the birds. *1/2 from ****
Review of The Road to Hong Kong
