Hal Roach was one of the biggest producers of two reel comedies during the silent age.  He was responsible for discovering Harold Lloyd, creating the Our Gang comedies (aka The Little Rascals) and he teamed up Stan Laurel with Oliver Hardy to create the most famous comedy duo in movies.  Roach was also able to successfully make the transfer to sound pictures.  But in the mid-1930's Roach reorganized his studio.  He sold the rights to the Our Gang series to MGM and began to focus on making feature length movies.  Roach went on to produce such successful pictures as Topper (1937,) Of Mice and Men (1939), Captain Fury (1939) and One Million B.C. (1940,) which he also directed.   The last feature movie that Hal Roach personally directed was 1941's Road Show, which Image has recently released on DVD.

Drogo Gaines (John Hubbard) is a rich and very eligible bachelor.  Every gold digger in town is after him and his fortune.  When one of them manages to get him to the altar, he fakes insanity at the last moment to postpone the wedding.   His fiancé, realizing what he's up to, screams that he's attacking her and he's committed to a mental hospital.  There Drogo meets Col. Carleton Carroway (Adolphe Menjou,) another rich mental patient and the two plan an escape.  They manage to sneak out without any trouble, and run into Penguin Moore (Carole Landis) the owner of a small time traveling circus.  Hounded by the sheriff from the county they just left, Gaines pays the $120 the circus owes and she allows him to travel with the troupe.  Gaines quickly falls in love with the honest (not to mention gorgeous) Penguin, and she starts falling for him, even though she thinks he's a penniless drifter.  Things get wild and wacky when the Cornel tell Penguin that Drogo is really a famous lion tamer, which prompts her to run out and acquire some lions for him to tame.

Roach was intending this to be an A picture, but it comes across as a run of the mil B-comedy from the time.  That doesn't mean that it's bad, the movie has its moments, but most of the gags can be seen coming from a long way off, and the jokes are mildly amusing rather than funny.  A typical example is when Gaines asks Carroway about the nature of love, the Cornel replies: "Love is like hash, you have to have confidence in it to enjoy it."  Oddly amusing, but not uproariously funny.  The plot also had a familiar feel to it.  The movie just moves from scene to scene without any real direction of motivation.  There were a lot of parts that didn't make sense, like the fact that no one batted an eye when Drogo, who they thought was a drifter, pulled $120 out of his pocket, a small fortune back in the depression.

The acting was standard.  The unfortunate Carole Landis did a good job.  She had a lot of natural beauty but she was able to play her role with finesse but didn't really stand out.  (Landis would commit suicide in 1948 after her career stalled.  She was 29 years old.)  John Hubbard was also average in his role as the rich, but not stupid, Drogo, but the movie was stolen by Adolphe Menjou.  His portrayal of the rich and eccentric Col Carroway was hilarious.  He has the funniest lines but he delivers them like he actually believes the outlandish things that he's saying.  He gives a great performance.

Audio:

The two channel mono soundtrack was a little below average even for a film of this age.  There was a persistent hiss and the sound was very thin.  There wasn't a lot of dynamic range to the sound and the voices all sounded a little tinny.  It wasn't so bad that you couldn't watch the film, but the sound didn't add anything to the picture.  There weren't any subtitles.

Video:

Like the audio, the black and white full frame image was slightly below average.  The image was on the dark side and had several missing frames, along with frequent specks and dirt on the print itself.  A lot of the detail was lost in the dark scenes and shadows.   While the movie was definitely watchable, the picture wasn't as good as it could have been.

The Extras:

This is a bare bones disc there are no extras.  A Hal Roach short would have been a natural fit, and I'm disappointed that they didn't include one on this DVD.

Final Thoughts:

Ultimately this is a mediocre movie.  The acting was average and the story really didn't really keep my interest.  There were some funny bits that made the film worth watching, but there weren't enough of those to recommend the DVD.  Rent it.