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.

Abbott and Costello play bus drivers who steal their company's bus to chauffeur playboy Robert Paige and his lady friends around. Detective William Demarest chases after them. Through a series of events Bud, Lou, Paige, and Virginia Bruce wind up on a tropical island where Lionel Atwill is up to no good. Among the island natives are Leif Erickson (!) and Samuel S. Hinds (!!), as well as gorgeous Nan Wynn. She sings a couple of nice songs and there's also some great musical numbers from the Ink Spots and Tip, Tap, Toe. Romantic subplot with Paige and Bruce is one of those tired old "she hates him but she really likes him" things. It's putrid and the worst part of the movie. Virginia's nice to look at, though. The comedy is good, with Abbott & Costello getting to do some funny bits with William Demarest in the first half. Once it moves to the island Bud kind of fades into the background and it's Lou's show from then on. This is a pretty good A&C movie. Not their funniest but funny enough with some nice music and a good supporting cast to help out. It's completely impossible for any movie with both William Demarest and Lionel Atwill in it to be bad.

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.

PARDON MY SARONG (1942) *** Abbott and Costello comedy with the boys as bus drivers who wind up on a tropical isle with a playboy to thwart some criminal elements from some lovely native babes. Best bit: "Big Stinkah!"