Road Show

If anyone ever questions the personal influence of Hal Roach on the motion pictures produced over the decades by his company, Hal Roach Studios, just sit them down to watch Road Show. For this, one of his very last directorial turns before the War effectively ended his moviemaking career, is a laughfest from beginning to end; loaded with the gags for which all of his great two-reel comedies had been world renown and which generally had been credited to the inventiveness of the comedians who had been their stars. But the magic came straight from The Old Man.

Road Show is a riotous comedic carnival ride barely slowed down for some top musical moments featuring songs by Hoagy Carmichael, as performed by The Charioteers and Hal Roach's daughter, Margaret (!), which, at least, allowed the audience to catch their breaths. And the story, starring a top-flight headline cast, is classic Hal Roach. An elusive, rich bachelor (played by the familiar John Hubbard) wiggles off the hook on his wedding day for the umpteenth time by feigning insanity, but this strong-willed bride isn't to be trifled with - she calls his bluff, and has him committed to the State looney bin! Plotting with permanent inmate Adolphe Menjou, they escape and take refuge in a traveling carnival, taken in by statuesque Carole Landis and her faithful crew. And that's just the first reel!

Hubbard falls for Carole and wants to secretly buy her the greatest carnival ever seen, while she believes he is broke. No wonder - he gets himself incarcerated for fleeing a local man out of some cash in a "game of chance", and Carole is forced to bust him and Menjou out of jail - as they're all heading for the County line. The finish is vintage Roach, including a slapstick gang fight on the carnival midway and an hysterically funny hook-and-ladder chase with comedienne Patsy Kelly steering the rear end of the fire truck, facing gag situations which, just a few years earlier, likely would have involved Oliver Hardy. Kelly is her usual loud, wacky self, and the uncredited portion of the supporting cast is absolutely littered with virtually all the familiar supporting faces who were so much a part of the Charley Chase, Laurel and Hardy, Todd-Pitts-Kelly, and Our Gang shorts - almost as if Roach had called everyone together for one last laugh on the Lot O'Fun before the legendary property was turned over to the Army Signal Corps as a wartime base and those halcyon days forever slipped away.

Road Show is a great, sentimental view of a now-extinct way of life courtesy of a nearly-lost film. Grab your last solid glimpse of Harold E. Roach, for his like has never passed this way again.