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Having accidently left a plane during flight (thank god they had
parachutes), nightclub comedians Duke Mitchell & Sammy Petrillo find
themselves stranded on a tropical island paradise somewhere in the
pacific. Here Duke soon finds a beautiful girl, Nona (Charlita), the
American-educated daughter of the chief (Al Kikume), & before long
they fall in love. Sammy meanwhile has caught the eye of Nona's sister
Saloma (Muriel Landers), but due to her rotund figure he feels less than
flattered.
Soon the 2 learn that on the island, there is a white man living in a
spooky castle, Doctor Zabor (Bela Lugosi), who makes experiments in
reversing the evolution, & who is also in love with Nona
(unrequitted). Oh, & secretly, he's quite mad. Eventually, Zabor
learns that Duke & Nona are not only in love, they even talk about
marriage, so he turns Duke into a gorilla (played by Steve Calvert) & keeps him in a cage. But sammy finds out, frees the gorilla, brings him to
the natives, & persuades them to fight Zabor, but before the fight can
even start, Zabor shoots Sammy & ... Sammy wakes up, back in New
Jersey, where his & Duke's nightclub act is about to start. &
wouldn't you know it, everybody in his dream turns out to be somehow
connected to his dream.
Despite Bela Lugosi featuring prominently in the title, the real stars
of this film are Duke Mitchell & Sammy Petrillo, 2 nightclub
performers specialized in impersonating Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis
(respectively. This should remain their only film, shortly after they were
sued by (the real) Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis for plagiarism (even if
in all fairness the early Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis films were more than a
little inspired by Bing Crosby & Bob Hope in the Road
to-series). & while Duke Mitchell is no Dean Martin in
either singing or lazy but cool & always ironic screen presence, Sammy
Petrillo is really every bit as annoying & unfunny as the real Jerry
Lewis, but by & large, the chemistry between Mitchell & Petrillo
is just missing.
The film itself is a cheapish, rather childish jungle comedy, that by
& large wastes Lugosi in another mad scientist role & fails to
deliver any real laughs. Not good, but on the other hand not much worse
than some of the weaker Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis films.
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