Wonderful character development!

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Another wacky Abbott and Costello(A&C) musical comedy, also costarring Robert Paige as Tommy: a wealthy playboy, and Virginia Bruce, as Joan, who has an initial adversarial relationship with Tommy, which turns romantic("They hate each other enough to get married", observed Costello).Tommy has illicitly hired a Chicago city bus to take himself an a bevy of gorgeous girls to Los Angeles. Costello, and his assistant, Abbott, are the drivers. Tommy will get his yacht ready for a coming race to Hawaii. The boys have a runin with Detective Kendall(William Demarest) just after they arrive, with some comical means of attempted escape, until they are captured. They are supposed to drive the bus back to Chicago, but instead accidentally drive it off a floating pier, thereby losing Kendall. They surface and are picked up by Tommy and Joan on his yacht, and are made deckhands, in spite of their lack of experience. They pick up a seal('sharky')along the way, who pops up every now and then through the rest of the film. They barely survive a terrible storm, losing all their sails. Fortunately, they come upon a small habitable island. They soon meet some natives, which they fear, and initially try to fight them. But, soon it's plain they like Costello for some reason, and the pair are conducted to the village. Meanwhile, Tommy and Joan are exploring on their own, and come across the cabin of an eccentric geologist, so he says,: Dr. Varnoff. The natives sing and dance for them. They demand that Costello wear a necklace with a special large jewel that is supposed to protect him from danger when he visits a mysterious temple on the side of the volcano. The last 5 men to go there never returned. He goes alone, but Abbott soon starts after him, in case he needs help. There, Costello , and sometimes Abbott, are chased all over the temple and surrounding jungle by 5 incredibly stupid goons, evidently sent by Dr. Varnoff, to steal the magical jewel. After they escape from these men, Costello spots Dr. Varnoff in a speed boat with Joan. He guesses that the doctor is up to no good, and swims toward the boat at a phenomenal rate. Eventually, he reaches the boat and has an eventful tussle with the doctor, eventually besting him. After this madcap adventure, Costello returns to claim his prize: the hand of the chief's daughter: Luana(Nan Wynn). He has to make up his mind whether to stay on the island with her or return to western civilization with his friends. The musical numbers were composed by several authors, the island songs being composed by Dan Raye and Gene de Paul. The Ink Spots sang several songs in the night club where Tommy brought his bevy of babes, upon their arrival in L.A.. The acrobatic dancing team of Tip, Tap, and Toe performed their amazing skill for one of these songs, one of the film highlights for me. ...Then, when the gang was on the island, two songs were sung by the beautiful Nan Wynn, accompanied by much dancing by both men and women(separately). "Lovely Luana" is a languid Hawaiian-styled ballad, while Vingo Jingo is a jazzy number. Perhaps too much time was spent on the dancing natives, for a primarily comedic film. If you like A&C films, this is one of their better efforts, despite its insane screen play. It's available in several A&C DVD collections.

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.

I've seen Pardon My Sarong over 10 times now and have to consider it one of Bud & Lou's best films, up there with Ride 'em cowboy, Meets Frankenstein, Hold that ghost etc. PMS is more distinctly episodic than most of their others and would present a Plot Coherency Issue with impatient first-comers, but if got through a sparkling atmospheric musical comedy lies within. The early '40's Universal Harmless Escapist Entertainment atmosphere helps a lot though, this must have been made straight after Hellzapoppin - wasn't that front porch outside the maggickan's cabaret show where Hugh Herbert's Eat At Joe's dickie blew up?The boys are illicitly taking Robert Paige's entertainment troupe from Chicago to LA in a bus - all those women in tow and he falls for one who is out to nobble him. Tip, Tap & Toe provide some amazing dance scenes (not quite a rhythmic brainstorm though), alongside the lilting Ink Spots. Detective William Demarest briefly tries to stop them but gives up the chase when they and the plot veer toward a South Seas island. Here "Lovely Luana" & "Vingo Jingo" are put over by a gorgeous Nan Wynn, while Leif Erickson plays a stinker and Lionel Atwill as usual plays a baddie because he was one.There's plenty of nicely contrived snappy routines for us aficionados: The old baseball story; Hiding from Demarest; "Back up! Go ahead!"; Sharing a pea for dinner etc. Not a lot for non-fans however - I think a better introduction to A&C for anyone interested would be Meets Frankenstein or maybe Time of their lives. And this one is definitely best watched sober!

Abbott and Costello are both hilarious in this tale of Bus drivers who end up on a tropical island. They take their time to get there but it's great fun. A few good songs help this out too. Many funny moments and very funny finale.Most enjoyable comedy which, in my opinion, is impossible to dislike.