Giving credit where it's due, only the technicolor, costumes and sets deserve any honorable mention.
This is undoubtedly the lowest point in BING CROSBY's long career at Paramount. The script is about as clumsy as you could possibly imagine and neither the casual Bing nor William Bendix nor Sir Cedric Hardwicke can do a thing about repairing it.
Bendix looks extremely foolish in a page boy wig. And poor Rhonda Fleming has a stock costume heroine role requiring her to look adoringly at Bing and little else except for warbling a couple of uninspired ballads in a voice probably dubbed for the occasion.
Just plain awful! Mark Twain's wit is not evident in any of the screenplay. Only die-hard Crosby fans can possibly appreciate this mess of a film given uninspired direction. Even the extras look as though they don't know what they're supposed to be doing.
Summing up: Dull as dishwater. Not recommended, even for children.
This is undoubtedly the lowest point in BING CROSBY's long career at Paramount. The script is about as clumsy as you could possibly imagine and neither the casual Bing nor William Bendix nor Sir Cedric Hardwicke can do a thing about repairing it.
Bendix looks extremely foolish in a page boy wig. And poor Rhonda Fleming has a stock costume heroine role requiring her to look adoringly at Bing and little else except for warbling a couple of uninspired ballads in a voice probably dubbed for the occasion.
Just plain awful! Mark Twain's wit is not evident in any of the screenplay. Only die-hard Crosby fans can possibly appreciate this mess of a film given uninspired direction. Even the extras look as though they don't know what they're supposed to be doing.
Summing up: Dull as dishwater. Not recommended, even for children.