Series Link 07.08.08: The Road To…
Posted by Arnold Furious on 07.08.2008
A look at the seven films starring Bob Hope & Bing Crosby. And Bob wrestling a gorilla!
Series Link #2: The Road To…
A look at the seven films starring Bob Hope & Bing Crosby. And Bob wrestling a gorilla!
SERIES LINK
Frequently when reviewing movies I notice I'm missing sequels here and there from classic series. In line with one of my key film watching beliefs I'll be making a point of tidying up some of my sequel history. The belief in question being that as long as I enjoyed the original I'll watch any sequel made of it. I don't know where this belief came from but it's one that seems to work out for me quite frequently and there are many film series where I have enjoyed multiple sequels based on my love and respect for the initial instalment (Alien, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Rocky etc).
Victor Schertzinger (2 times), Hal Walker (2 times)
Series Span:
22 years. 1940-1962.
Road to Singapore (1940)
Former writer Harlan Thompson was the brains behind the Road to Singapore. The original duo offered the roles were Gracie Allen and George Burns. Then again to Fred McMurray and Jack Oakie. When both sets rejected Thompson turned to a duo he'd seen goofing around on the lot at Paramount Studios. Bing Crosby and Bob Hope were instantly a good match. Crosby was the star. An accomplished singer, dancer and popular actor. Hope was his comedy foil. Also an all-rounder with great comedy timing. I hesitate to use the word ‘sidekick' but that's how he comes off. Pair them up with the beautiful Dorothy Lamour (another singer) and there's your cast.
The plot involves two bachelor sailors eager to avoid the nuptials of holy matrimony. Crosby is Josh, playboy son of a shipping tycoon while Hope plays his, well, sidekick Ace Lannigan. They both abscond to avoid marriage to their respective other halves and wind up in the South Seas (fictional island Kaigoon to be precise) with $1.28 and living in a shack by the ocean. It's there they meet Mima (Lamour) who makes a living as an entertainer with Cesar (Anthony Quinn), a whip wielding heel. Soon Mima has moved into their shack and made them both into respectable gentlemen. Something they weren't too keen on. The dialogue in Road to Singapore makes it immediately stand out ahead of a lot of other movies from the time because so much of it is ad-libbed and that takes advantage of how quick witted Bob Hope was. He gets in a series of one liners. As one couple after another run past him in the jungle he pipes up with; "this'd be a hell of a place for a hot dog stand". The film isn't particularly long at 81 minutes and the plot flies by at breakneck pace. No sooner have they met Mima she's enforcing rules on them and they're starting to turn against her. Literally this takes place in a span of less than five minutes. Director Victor Schertzinger is responsible for this and it keeps the mood very light. The opening basically defines Bob Hope's character in a few words and then Bing's in another five minutes. It's almost as if they want you to like Crosby more. They're both rogues but Bing is supposed to be slightly more loveable thanks to his devotion to his daft friend. I actually found it to be the other way round. I thought Hope came off as the nice guy. Happy go lucky, full of crazy schemes and loaded with off the cuff remarks. The songs slow matters up a little bit and I must admit I fast forwarded a couple of them. Yeah, they sound ‘nice' but cramming five songs in seemed superfluous. The only one that's any good is ‘Sweet Potato Pie' when all three leads get to do something fun. The ‘Too Romantic' duet between Crosby and Lamour is vomit inducing. That said it's a fun and fast paced start to the series but by no means a classic.
No videos on YouTube that tickle my fancy but a demonstration here of how great Bob Hope's timing is…
Road to Zanzibar (1941)
With Road to Singapore being so wildly successful they wasted no time in doing a follow up hijacking a Fred McMurray picture in the process. While the three principal actors remained the same the parts they played changed. Also because of his burgeoning popularity Bob Hope moved up the billing order above Dorothy Lamour whose part is smaller here than during Road to Singapore. In fact the duelling love stories aspect is toned down here, even though it remains, with the focus switching to Crosby & Hope's double act that supplied so many laughs in Singapore. Zanzibar is set in Africa with the opening 30 minutes showing Hope as "Fearless" Frazier and Crosby as Chuck Reardon. They're both conmen trying to make a quick buck before going home. The first half an hour sees various cons as Fearless attempts various carnival acts (one of which burns down the big top) while delivering his patented one liners. Bob Hope gets more one liners in the opening 30 minutes than most comics get in their entire careers on film. And they're funny and they've aged well. Unlike some of Groucho Marx's gags these are timeless. The film slows up noticeably when Dorothy Amour's Donna shows up, a damsel in distress who's actually as much of a con artist as the male duo, as the inevitable duelling love story plays out once again. This time it's less divisive though and Crosby and Hope remain together onscreen for the majority of the time. Which is a real bonus because the very worst parts of Singapore involved the departure of Bob Hope from the screen during Crosby & Lamour's developing relationship. Hope only misses one scene in Zanzibar when Crosby drugs him after conning him into believing he has malaria.
Just when you think Zanzibar hasn't much left to offer after the laugh riot of the opening half hour we get around to the films conclusion. Captured by a wild African tribe the duo are treated initially as Gods but the tribe aren't convinced and decide to make them prove they are. How? By making Bob Hope wrestle a gorilla (well, a guy in a gorilla costume). And it's a full on wrestling match! Hope appropriately starts out with a monkey flip. Hur-hur. Crosby shouts on encouragement about him being "scientifically superior" to my amusement as the ape reverses a leglock. The match includes snapmares, bodyslams and an airplane spin. I loved every second of it and it was the icing on the comedy cake. There are some racist overtones but hey, it's 1941, it's all pretty innocent stuff. At least no one uses the word "sambo". The pat-a-cake routine from Singapore is revived with the first guy they try it on, a 7-foot henchman, knocking them down in the middle of it. "He must've seen the picture" cracks Hope on his way to the deck. Funny how, like the Pink Panther, there was never any intention of originally doing a sequel to the original film but its success allowed another film to get altered into the second film in the series. And much like a Shot in the Dark the results are highly favourable. I love this film.
BEST BIT – Do you have to ask? Obviously it'd be Bob Hope wrestling the gorilla. Sadly that's not on YouTube (but it should be). In the trailer, which is on YouTube, there are clips of it briefly at about 1.45.
Road to Morocco (1942)
Victor Schertzinger passed away in 1941 and was the major change in personnel between Zanzibar and Morocco. This time David Butler (Calamity Jane) took over behind the camera. The scenery also changed a little with Crosby & Hope pitched into the desert away from the jungles of the first two films. Like Zanzibar broke the 4th wall by referencing the first film in the series (using the pat-a-cake fight scene) Morocco does even more so. The pat-a-cake fights are still there. This time with the evil Anthony Quinn spotting the move coming. Even the songs contain references to how obvious and predictable the last two films have been. The "Road to Morocco" song contains the lyric "I'll bet you 8/5 we meet Dorothy Lamour". Littered with in gags and ad-libbing Morocco starts out just as disjointed as Zanzibar but then reigns itself in suddenly after Jeff Peters (Bing Crosby) sells his friend Orville (Bob Hope) to a slave trader. Keeping the tradition Orville is better known by his nickname…Turkey. Orville is then sold on to Princess Shalmar (Dorothy Lamour) and thus begins the duelling for her affection between the two leads, which has inhabited each Road movie. It's more fun here with prophets predicting the Princess' first husband will die a violent death and instead of fighting over her it becomes an attempt by Orville to offload the Princess and make off with her hand-maiden Mihirmah (Dona Drake).
Morocco is the first of the series to date badly with the talking camel at the end being a particularly lousy gag. But there's more than enough wackiness from the two leads to compensate. The Road series had very much hit on the pattern for success even though it's already self-referential and, to a degree, a parody of itself. As well as the other films it seeks to poke fun at. Switching locations to the desert provides some fresh targets. It was also a boost to the troops that America had sent overseas. Road to Morocco was the most popular of the films sent to entertain the troops during World War II. Which is partially where Bob Hope gets his reputation from as an entertainer of soldiers. He was also known by this point as an Oscar host, and went on to host the show 18 times, so when he has the opportunity to do some serious acting in Morocco he doesn't shy away. His outburst near the film's conclusion sees him adrift on a raft ranting about their being no food. Bing interrupts to point out they're right by New York and will be picked up 2 minutes. Hope replies with "You had to open your big mouth and ruin the only good scene I got in the picture. I might have won the Academy Award!" So yeah, not only is it self referential but the fourth wall isn't just broken but nowhere in sight for several scenes. I imagine that'd get irritating over time but during Morocco it has a strange sense of charm. Especially when there's a feeling the heroes are never in danger and they're just having a lark. Hope's one liners are great as always and the ending is great but there isn't a set piece as good as the gorilla one from Zanzibar.
BEST BIT – When singing a song between them Bing & Bob start to mimic each other's appearance. Hope pushing his ears out to imitate Crosby's lugholes being the high point.
Road to Utopia (1946)
Road to Utopia opens to reveal an aging Dorothy Lamour and Bob Hope enjoying old age after 35 years of marriage. Oh, so Bob gets the girl this time around eh? Makes a pleasant switch. The remainder of the film is shown in flashback as we see Duke (Bing Crosby) and Chester (Bob Hope) heading out to Alaska to try their hand at the gold business. They start out life as entertainers but after their latest racket doesn't pan out they retreat via an ocean liner. Which leads to two great sight gags. Bob Hope mistaking a porthole for a safe and the duo coming runners up to a monkey in a talent contest. Hope promptly quips "I shoulda brought Sinatra". I figured Zanzibar would be my favourite Road movie but Utopia has so many great one liners, and they don't slow down after the opening bombardment (although the opening scene contains no straight lines for Hope at all, every line is a gag). Where Zanzibar triumphed over the other films in the series was the wrestling match with the gorilla. Here that's almost equalled by a great scene where they teach their dog to play fetch and then run into some dynamite. It's an obvious gag but the set up is so well done it's excusable. What isn't is the needless interjections from Robert Benchley. Supposedly to add colour to the slower aspects of the film it merely serves to annoy and detract from the real stars of the show. It doesn't help that none of the lines are particularly funny. The songs do tend to slow things down also although Hope's reaction shots and constant breaking of the 4th wall are a welcome intrusion into the straight laced singing. Also I don't care much for the talking animals bit. The camels weren't funny last time out the bear isn't here.
Road to Utopia is loaded, loaded with gags. They must have been running at a joke every 10 seconds or so. It's so loaded there isn't even room for the pat-a-cake fight routine. In this one there's a running gag about pulling the rug out from under the bad guys feet. There's also a running gag about "whatta ya think we are…" followed by impressions of whatever animal was mentioned. Hal Walker steps up from assistant on Zanzibar to full on directing this film and he does as fine a job as any of the Road directors at trying to keep the plot going from A to B despite the constant ad-libbing. Also Dorothy Lamour is at her level hottest here looking stunning in furs and at one point a Gilda-esque affair for a stage show at the Last Chance Saloon. Utopia gets pretty surreal aside from the talking animals and at one point Santa drops in. Regardless of how zany and out there the film gets Bob Hope's quick witted one liners are constantly and consistently funny throughout and Bing is pretty sharp himself. There's a great moment where they're climbing a mountain and a fake rock accidentally falls on Hope and hits him in the head. They ad-lib a little then carry on the scene. Which also has another great sight gag where Hope can't count to 10 to stop his avalanche causing hiccups because he has mittens on. "Five, ten, fifteen, twenty". It was buried between two other sight gags and a couple of one liners. If you don't find one joke funny don't worry there will be another one along immediately. A little like Rufus Firefly in Duck Soup. Groucho just piled jokes into scenes. One after another. Hope & Crosby are very much like that here. Even more so than usual. It's a tough call as to which Road movie is the funniest but this has to be in contention. I honestly don't remember the last film that made me laugh so many times.
BEST BIT – Bob Hope finally gets to kiss Dorothy Lamour. Goodbye 4th wall again. "As far as I'm concerned this picture is over now". It's not on YouTube but the songs always are so here's another…featuring a Paramount logo gag. Hope's reactions throughout are gold.
Road to Rio (1947)
Having struggled to maintain a director throughout the series the studio turned to Norman Z. McLeod for Road to Rio. The same director who went on to work with Bob Hope on the Paleface. He'd already famously worked with the Marx Brothers on successful comedies in the 1930's; Horse Feathers and Monkey Business. For whatever reason McLeod seemed to have a calming effect on the Road series. Rio is perhaps the most well paced of all the Road movies but in doing so it takes away a lot of the comedy. The opening 30 minutes aren't littered with the usual gags and the high wire act that's supposed to be the big woofer of the opening scenes is more miss than hit. Rio also runs longer than all the other Road movies at 100 minutes and it starts to feel like a bit of a drag in the second half. So much for obeying the rules of filmmaking. The constrictive atmosphere is still interrupted by the occasional ignoring of the 4th wall. "She looks like Lamour, she can sing like Lamour" says Crosby of Lamour's character when they're forming a band. There are also clever little in-references throughout and although it seems more subdued than usual Hope and Crosby's one liners are there in numbers.
The plot sees entertainers Scat Sweeney (Bing Crosby with the daft name for once) and Hotlips Barton (Bob Hope, not to be outdone on name daftness) accidentally burn down a circus, which would be the second time they've managed that. They go on the run and end up on an ocean liner bound for Rio where they run into Lucia (Dorothy Lamour) who's been hypnotised into getting married in Rio to bail her rich aunt out of trouble. The boys set about wrecking the evil plans although Hope seems more interested in running away than in the previous films. To begin with he even tries to assist Lucia's suicide. Slightly darker material than usual. The songs seem even more intrusive than in previous Road movies, as is often the way with musicals, and at least two of them are complete rubbish. There is a bonus of the Wiere Brothers joining in the fun as three South American performers roped into joining the band so Bing & Bob can get a gig at the local night spot. They only know one line of English each, which leads to Bing & Bob using hand signs to provoke each brother into action ("You're telling me", "You're in the groove, Jackson" and "This is murder"). This leads to some great repetition gags and they nearly steal the show entirely with some dancing before Bing & Bob take over with a more destructive dance number. Despite there being some good laughs it's more toned down and I was left wanting for the zany antics of the earlier films. There's also an issue as to how poor the transfer is to DVD (easily the worst of the series) but that doesn't really effect the film as badly as it's toned down nature.
BEST BIT – "This is murder"
Road to Bali (1952)
Five years since the last ‘Road' movie and the gang got back together to make another. Frank Butler, who'd written three of the previous road movies, had a script and Hal Walker returned to the director's chair to make his contribution to a 4th Road movie. It was shot in colour and had all three principle players returning. And yet Road to Bali is perhaps the weakest of the Road movies. Relying on ridiculous plot points that don't go anywhere AND aren't funny it also doesn't have the same rhythm as the earlier films. The songs are worse than usual with only the one song, that everyone gets in on, being any good. The stars simply don't have the hunger and there's a distinct feeling that although they're having fun making the movie they don't need it.
The plot is wearing a little thin by this point too. As we see two entertainers fleeing commitment and heading into a far off place to fight over the attentions of a beautiful woman played by Dorothy Lamour. This time it's George (Bing Crosby) and Harold (Bob Hope) fighting over Princess Lala (Lamour). Unfortunately the plethora of jokes are more miss than hit this time around with a lot of the humour having aged badly. Yes, there are badly aged jokes in the other films too but for some reason Bali hits a high percentage of topical humour that's now not funny. The visual gags don't seem quite on the mark either. In particular the love starved gorilla bit. Which is preceded by a terrible, terrible sequence where a tiger and gorilla fight to the death. Quite how that was intended to lighten the mood is anyone's guess.
The film ends up relying on cameos for its laughs. Jane Russell turns up, as do Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis. Humphrey Bogart is also there in a clip from the African Queen that raises a chuckle. But they are few and far between and the usual gags, pat-a-cake and talking to the audience, just don't seem as assured as usual. The series was getting a little tired by this point. During the Road to Rio the stars were bailed out by the fabulous Wiere Brothers. Here there's no one to help out. Dorothy Lamour looks bored half the time and none of the leads have their usual energy. It's still funny in places but it's incredibly inconsistent and the nonsense ‘big' scenes aren't funny enough. There are also plot holes and really obvious continuity errors. Quite disappointing for everyone involved.
BEST BIT – Bob Hope cutting up the introduction to a Bing Crosby song by addressing the audience. "He's gonna sing, folks. Now's the time to go out and get the popcorn.". The entire of this film appears on YouTube…
The Road to Hong Kong (1962)
Ten years since the Road to Bali came out and Bing & Bob return for one final hurrah. The boys were getting ‘up there' in terms of age. The "boys" were pushing 60 and it looked it. Bing Crosby looks especially haggard and you'd have to wonder why they bothered going for another movie. Bing was rumoured to think that Dorothy Lamour was too old (despite being 11 years younger than the others) to be the leading lady, which is rich coming from an old fart like him, but Bob Hope wouldn't do the movie without her (this is from Dorothy Lamour's autobiography). So Lamour is reduced to an extended cameo near the end of the film helping the boys out of a tight scrape. Her lead role instead went to Joan Collins. She has little of Lamour's screen presence and the only chemistry visible is when Lamour herself shows up to play off Bob Hope. I notice Bing Crosby keeps his distance. The film is littered with cameos including Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra (referenced throughout the series) and David Niven but the film is very nearly stolen by Peter Sellers who gets an extended cameo as a madcap Indian doctor who doesn't seem entirely sane.
The Road to Hong Kong sees Harry Turner (Bing Crosby) and Chester Babcock (Bob Hope), two scam artists wanted across Asia, getting involved in espionage when Third Echelon (a SPECTRE like group) spy Diana (Joan Collins) mistakes Chester for her contact. There are a few chuckles as Babcock loses his memory, which is where Doctor Sellers comes into play, but on the whole the Road to Hong Kong falls flat on its face. When I said that Road to Bali was "perhaps the weakest" of the franchise that's only "perhaps" because of this feature. A lot of the comedy seems forced and the lightning ad-libs seem conspicuous in their absence. It rather feels like a movie for the sake of it. Trying to grab a hold of the mainstream interests in espionage and sci-fi create a world littered with drab characters and lengthy boring exposition. Not at all in the style of the Road series. During the course of the film the principle characters become astronauts in place of two chimps, which brings in the weakest sight gags of the entire series where a feeding machine dumps bananas in their mouths and then goes haywire. Yanno, like the Charlie Chaplin one in Modern Times. Only without Chaplin's unique timing and gifts for physical comedy.
Sadly the Road to Hong Kong comes off as a faded attempt to recapture the lightning in a bottle. There are still laughs in the film but they're few and far between. It comes off as a cheap cash-in with jaded stars. Hope looks like he's still enjoying himself but Crosby looks like he fancies a nap. And the films always worked better when they were both energised. The row over Lamour didn't set the film off in a good direction and there's an unpleasant vibe. The racist slurs in this one seem more offensive than before because it's 1962 and surely they know what they're doing with the Chinese stereotypes by then? That said Chinese stereotyping pretty much continued into the 1980's so maybe I'm being harsh. Regardless the plot, special effects and script are all sub par and the 4th wall stuff in this one is really annoying. The one self-referential moment of class is when Bing & Bob ask two guards if they've ever seen any of the Road pictures before unleashing the pat-a-cake routine on them.
BEST BIT – Peter Sellers drops in for a diagnosis… "You're suffering from a severe attack of teeth".
Sidenote – for some reason my spellchecker thinks psychical is a word. Its one of those words I have a mental block with too. "Physical" that is. Thanks to Mat for pointing out I kept spelling it wrong in Series Link #1. Bloody spellchecker.
RATINGS –
Road to Singapore ***
Road to Zanzibar ****1/2
Road to Morocco ****
Road to Utopia ****1/2
Road to Rio ***
Road to Bali **1/2
The Road to Hong Kong **
The 411 – Once the ‘Road' series hit its stride it produced some quite excellent, albeit formulaic, comedies. Bordering zany and wacky they played off the real life friendship of the two male leads. Bob Hope is the star regardless of opinion at the time rifling off one liners like they're going out of fashion. Especially during Road to Utopia, the best of the series, where he neglects to have a straight line for about half an hour. The songs are intrusive and rarely work but when they do it's a pleasant surprise. Hope & Crosby both had great chemistry with Dorothy Lamour producing some great scenes where the two heroes both chase the one girl. After Bob Hope's gorilla wrestling there's really nowhere to go but down in terms of ‘big scenes' and the series did get a little tired after the peak in Utopia. The cracks start to show during Road to Rio and the final two movies are very tired indeed. Thankfully there are still laughs right up to the end and none of the Road movies are as bad as the worst during the Pink Panther franchise. If you're looking for an in-point in the series then you can't go wrong with either Zanzibar or Utopia. The run-on gags from film to film don't really necessitate having seen the previous flick as there are other run-on gags to enjoy as well during each instalment.
Great read! I love the Road films and even though I haven't seem them since I was a kid, it makes me want to go buy a couple just to watch.
You should seriously consider doing the Martin/Lewis series. I'd love to read that man.
Posted By: HULL (Registered) on July 08, 2008 at 03:51 AM
Sadly only 3 of the Martin & Lewis comedies are available in the UK.
And as there are 16 movies the duo did together I don't think that's going to cut it. Thanks for the suggestion though. Always appreciated. I have the next two columns lined up.
Posted By: Arnold Furious (Registered) on July 08, 2008 at 06:57 PM
