Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Peereddi I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Allissa .Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

tavm Having reviewed Laurel & Hardy in Pardon Us a few days ago, I'm now commenting on Abbott & Costello's Pardon My Sarong. The significance of these two being submitted so close together is what I'll mention when I'm nearing the end. Right now, I'll just say that this is the funniest of the early A & C vehicles that I've just rewatched on YouTube. And not only are Bud & Lou at the top of their game-how refreshing to see Abbott get a few good laughs himself here-but the rest of the cast, including the romantic leads of Robert Paige and Virginia Bruce seem to be having fun every step of the way. I mean, William Demarest as a cop and Leif Erickson as the "Biggest Stinker of Them All" (LOL) are great foils for the team. And the musical interludes by The Four Ink Spots and Nan Wynn are soooo enjoyable to me! Really, Pardon My Sarong is one of the most fun of the A & C pictures. Okay, so the reason that Pardon Us and Pardon My Sarong have gotten comments from me on the closest of days is because since Black History Month is only a few days away, I've been mentioning the contributions of various performers of color to these movies. So with this one, we have not only The Four Ink Spots (Deek Watson, Charles Fuqua, Hoppy Jones, Bill Kenny) but also a tap dancing trio named Tip, Tap, and Toe (Ted Fraser, Samuel Green, and Ray Winfield who was the innovator of the sliding style of tap as evidenced by the way he glided on that table during The Four Ink Spots second set. Really impressive, that was especially when I watched it a second time!), and the choreographer of those island dances led by Ms. Wynn was Katherine Dunham. They were quite sexy especially "Vingo Jingo". By the way, Ms. Dunham studied and began practicing her art in Chicago, Ill., my birthtown (Chicago was also where the bus driven by Bud and Lou in the picture's beginning came from). One more thing, I always like to acknowledge whenever players from my favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life, are in other films and TV shows. Here it's Charles Lane as Bud & Lou's superior at the bus terminal and Samuel S. Hinds as one of the natives. They both previously were in A & C's last Universal movie before this one, Ride 'Em Cowboy.

MartinHafer Just recently I began re-watching the films of Abbott and Costello. As a kid, I'd seen just about all of them and now, decades later, I am going through a nostalgic phase seeing them again. I started at the beginning and have already noticed one thing. While the team tries hard and does just fine, Universal Studio (as well as MGM for three films) insisted on sticking the boys with the same tried and true formula--and it handicapped the films. First, they insisted on making Bud and Lou more like supporting players and had an unrelated love story which starred some hunky guy (such as Dick Foran or Dick Powell--two Dicks that were unnecessary in the film). Second, the films were given at least 4 or 5 big production number songs--often in nightclubs but always with lots of gloss and they are certainly not subtle! Heck, in this film, they even did a few numbers like this on a primitive tropical island!! Well, as I mentioned PARDON MY SARONG above, you can correctly guess that it, too, is one of these early formulaic movies. So, in addition to way too much music, it had a love story involving Virginia Bruce and Robert Paige--two people who had no reason to be in the film. Why, oh why couldn't they just give the film to Abbott and Costello and them alone? Later, this would be the case in many films, but for now this one is yet another that is handicapped at the start--though I must admit that the two Ink Spots songs were more enjoyable than most.As for the plot, it's not bad and the film is fun. BUT, Universal also severely handicapped the team again by creating the lamest tropical island in the history of film. It's inhabited with people that look like Hollywood extras covered in a dye to make them look "tropical". Along with the women's 1942 hair styles (complete with perms) they looked about as native as Lana Turner!! And, unfortunately, there were some dumb gimmicks added as well that simply looked like dumb gimmicks--such as the terribly unrealistic swordfish and the underwater scene early in the film (it's obviously an aquarium scene with Mollies and Guppies superimposed over Bud, Lou and William Demarest). It's a shame the studio took so many shortcuts, I could have ignored the unnecessary songs and love story but I couldn't ignore the cheesiness. It's also a shame, as the idea of the film is good AND it was nice to see Lou really be a hero by the end of the film. Too bad--a film with a lot of promise that is undone by stupid studio hacks that insisted on formula and didn't trust Abbott and Costello to be funny on their own.

bkoganbing Until the VHS of Pardon My Sarong was released I had never seen the complete film. When I was a lad and WPIX television in New York City used to show Abbott and Costello films every Sunday morning, the film always began with Costello crashing that bus into the harbor. I used to wonder why as prominent an actor like William Demarest had such a brief part. So when I was a kid I missed the Ink Spots do a number and I missed cop Bill Demarest get bamboozled by A&C. Both Abbott and Costello disguise themselves as a magician and make Demarest the fall guy for some gags. This might be the only time Abbott was ever a comic in any of their films and he was good.I guess the Chicago Transit company didn't want to put two buses in jeopardy which was why both boys were on the same bus. Millionaire Yachtsman Robert Paige has some how talked these two into leaving their Michigan Avenue route and driving him and a bevy of beauties to Los Angeles for the start of a boat race.Of course having lost their jobs as bus drivers with this harebrained move the boys sign on with Paige as a yacht crew along with Virginia Bruce who is the sister of one of Paige's rivals and they get blown off course and wind up on an island Dorothy Lamour would be found on if the film had been made at Paramount.Don't ask me how, but the natives make Costello some kind of Deity and he gets to be the big man on campus there. Of course we also have resident villain Lionel Atwill looking to loot some treasure.Like Douglass Dumbrille in a few Abbott and Costello films, Atwill looked like he was having a great old time burlesquing his own sinister image, especially in the chase sequence at the end.One of the best from Abbott and Costello's early Universal days.

classicsoncall Two unlikely buddies hijack a bus, stow away on a charter boat, land on an uncharted island, and save the sacred ruby of Mantua. On paper, the concept doesn't seem to work, but with Abbott and Costello, anything is possible. In "Pardon My Sarong", all this and more combine to present a musical comedy that works even after sixty years.Watching the night club scene, it occurred to me that you never see any act today that features tap dancing, but the efforts of the team of Tic, Tac and Toe make for a very entertaining presentation, combining originality, athleticism and choreography all rolled into one. The musical stylings of The Four Ink Spots are also a treat, and a reasonable alternative to the Andrews Sisters who graced a number of the comedy duo's earlier films.When I saw this movie as a kid, the Big Stinker routine always made me roar, and surprisingly, it still holds up pretty well today in the chuckle department. It's neatly complemented by the "Tree of Truth" gag, with Lou taking his licks each time he makes a comment.There's also a bevy of pretty girls around to offset the nefarious deeds of the evil Doctor Varnoff (Lionel Atwill) and his henchmen. It all combines to make an entertaining hour and a half of antic fun for the "moola" team of Abbott and Costello.