Bing Crosby and Bob Hope Road to Collection Dvd Cover Art

Series of comedy movies

Bob Promise & Bing Crosby sing and dance during "Chicago Fashion" in Road to Bali (1952)

Road to ... is a series of seven comedy films starring Bing Crosby, Bob Promise, and Dorothy Lamour. They are also often referred to as the "Road" pictures or the "Route" series. The movies were a combination of chance, comedy, romance, and music. The minimal plot often took a back seat to gags, which appeared improvised but were usually scripted.^[1]

Films in the series [edit]

• Route to Singapore (1940)
• Road to Zanzibar (1941)
• Road to Morocco (1942)
• Road to Utopia (1946)
• Road to Rio (1947)
• Road to Bali (1952)
• The Route to Hong Kong (1962)
• Route to the Fountain of Youth (canceled)

Each picture show is non simply a comedy simply a satire of some of the pop film genres of the twenty-four hours, including jungle, Arabian nights, Alaskan chance and loftier seas.

In 1977, an eighth Road to... film was planned, titled Road to the Fountain of Youth, but Crosby died that year of a heart attack.^[ii]

In 1947, Astor Pictures released a compilation film of several of Crosby's Educational Pictures brusk subjects chosen The Road to Hollywood to evoke the series. The United states of america Navy too commissioned Promise and Crosby to produce the 1945 curt film Road to Dwelling house.^[three]

In Sweden, the get-go film was given the championship Två glada sjömän går iland (Two Jolly Sailors Become Ashore), and the subsequent films in the series were given titles beginning with Två glada sjömän ..., except for the last pic, which was instead chosen Vägen till Hong Kong (a direct translation of the English language title).

In the 1980s, Eric Idle wanted to make a moving picture chosen The Road to Mars but was then frustrated by the executive meddling at Hollywood studios that he wrote it every bit a novel instead.

Running gags [edit]

Beginning with Road to Singapore the films also included in-joke references to other Hollywood actors and jabs at Paramount Pictures, the studio that released all the films except for The Road to Hong Kong. There are likewise frequent instances in which Bob Hope breaks the fourth wall to accost the audition direct, such equally in Route to Bali, in which he says, "[Crosby]'south gonna sing, folks. Now's the time to go out and become the popcorn."^[4]

Hope and Crosby would commonly play some form of confidence men trying to make a lot of money, with Bing coming up with the ideas and Bob usually doing most of the dirty work.^[v] Another common set-slice in the films is a monologue by Crosby "telling it like it is" to the Dorothy Lamour character, only to fall into traditional Crosby-singing-a-ballad; an example from The Road to Rio (1947) features the Crosby character analyzing the true love-encounters of a (fictional) film scene, followed past his singing "But Beautiful" (Jimmy Van Heusen / Johnny Burke).^[vi]

When confronted past the villain, Hope and Crosby would use a "patty block" routine before throwing punches, though this would sometimes not work, as in Road to Morocco: "That gag sure gets around, huh?" "Yeah, right dorsum to Usa!" The only film in the series in which the routine was non used was in Road to Utopia.

Both characters would usually promise to non let women to interfere with their plans, and both would immediately see a woman and forget that promise. Crosby would nigh e'er get the daughter, with the exceptions being in Route to Utopia and Road to Rio (although hypnosis was involved in the latter case).

Promise's character usually would accept a nickname with which he would exist referred to throughout the film, as in Route to Morocco, when he was called "Turkey", and Road to Zanzibar, in which he was called "Fearless".

Crosby credited writer Barney Dean with standing off-camera and continuously coming up with jokes.^[7]

Promise would also break the fourth wall continuously to over-act, oft with an upbraiding from Crosby. Hope would then arraign his overacting on his try to win an Oscar. In reality, Hope never won any Oscar for his piece of work, although he did receive honorary Oscars. Afterward, when Promise was a regular Oscar host, he incorporated his "Oscar allurement" whines into his monologues at that place.

Reception [edit]

Box office functioning [edit]

Film	U.S. release appointment	Usa/Canada theatrical rental	Ref(due south)
Road to Singapore	March xiv, 1940	$ane,600,000*	[8]
Road to Zanzibar	April xi, 1941	TBD
Road to Morocco	Nov ten, 1942	$3,800,000	[9]
Road to Utopia	February 27, 1946	$4,500,000	[nine]
Road to Rio	December 25, 1947	$4,500,000	[nine]
Road to Bali	December 25, 1952	$3,000,000	[9]
The Road to Hong Kong	May 23, 1962	$2,600,000	[10]
Total		$20,000,000

^*Worldwide theatrical rental

Homages and other influence [edit]

• The 1944 Famous Studios Popeye cartoon "We're On Our Way to Rio" is a parody of these films.
• The April 20, 1966 episode of The Danny Thomas Show, titled "The Road to Lebanon," featured Bing Crosby scouting locations in Beirut for a new Road moving-picture show without Bob Promise.^[eleven]
• In the 1981 Mel Brooks film History of the World, Part I, on escaping from the Romans, Brooks and co-star Gregory Hines parody the series' "Nosotros're off on the road to..." signature song past singing "Nosotros're off on the road to Judea, we certainly practice get around..."
• The 1985 film Spies Like Us, starring Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Hunt, is an homage to the films; Hope makes a cameo equally himself in 1 scene. The phrase "Road to Dushanbe" is uttered several times throughout the pic. Dushanbe is nigh the ultimate destination of the protagonists.
• The 1987 film Ishtar was envisioned by writer/manager Elaine May every bit an homage to the "Road" serial.^[12]
• The 1990 They Might Exist Giants vocal "Road Motion-picture show to Berlin" references the films in its title.
• The TaleSpin episode "Road to Macadamia" pays tribute to the serial, including spoofs on the songs.
• Iii episodes of the 1991-1995 animated series Taz-Mania spoofed the Road to.. movies, starring Hugh Tasmanian Devil (Taz'south father, a Crosby parody) and his brother Drew Tasmanian Devil (parodying Hope). The episodes were "Road to Taz-Mania," "Render of the Route to Taz-Mania Strikes Back" and "However Another Road to Taz-Mania."
• The Duckman episode "Road to Dendron" spoofs the series.
• The 2000 blithe film The Road to El Dorado is an homage to the Route movies.
• In the 2001–2003 Disney animated series The Fable of Tarzan, the characters Hugo and Hooft are loosely based on Hope and Crosby (though not in advent).
• The animated TV serial Family Guy has had viii "Road to ..." episodes that spoof the original Road pictures, starring Brian and Stewie Griffin: "Road to Rhode Isle", "Road to Europe", "Route to Rupert", "Road to Germany", "Road to the Multiverse", "Road to the N Pole", "Roads to Vegas", and "Road to India". In addition, the serial' 2009 episode "Spies Reminiscent of Us" is an homage to Spies Like Us, even invitee starring Aykroyd and Chase, which in turn was based on the "Road" films.
• The tv series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic episode "Road to Friendship" from September 1, 2018, was paying homage to these films with the episode title and a song past the aforementioned proper name.

References [edit]

1. ^ Gary Giddins, relying on Paramount scripts and other documentation, in Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams — The Early Years, 1903-1940 (NY: Niggling, Brown, 2009), 39. ISBN 9780316091565
2. ^ "The 'Road...' Films of Hope, Crosby and Lamour". h2g2. 2004-10-09. Retrieved 2009-10-25 .
3. ^ Route to Home is available for gratis download at the Cyberspace Annal
4. ^ Wes D. Gehring, "Hope & Crosby: Road to Bali (1953), in Movie Comedians of the 1950s: Defining a New Era of Large Screen One-act (Jefferson NC: McFarland, 2016), 72-83; ISBN 1476626928
5. ^ I example, from The Road to Rio (1947), involves getting $200 to ride a wheel across a wire; indeed, the Crosby grapheme makes the bargain and the Promise graphic symbol does the deed; or, rather, half of it: Promise appears to cross halfway, before accidentally setting the circus on fire, at which point Crosby bounces Promise into a waiting wagon with horses, to make their escape to the cruise boat which takes them to Rio de Janeiro.
6. ^ Analyzed in detail by Steven Cohan, "Almost Like Being at Habitation: Showbiz Culture and Hollywood Road Trips in the 1940s and 1950s", in Cohan and Ina Rae Hark, eds., The Road Picture Book (London: Routledge, 1997), 113-42. (119-22) ISBN 9781134824366
7. ^ Gilliland, John (July 8, 1971). "Popular Chronicles Interviews #133 - Bing Crosby". UNT Digital Library.
8. ^ "Which Movie theatre Films Have Earned the Nigh Money Since 1914?". The Argus. Melbourne. 4 March 1944. p. 3 Supplement: The Argus Weekend mag. Retrieved June 25, 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
9. ^ ^{a b c d} Cohn, Lawrence (October 15, 1990). "All-time Flick Rental Champs". Variety. p. M182.
10. ^ "Big Rental Pictures of 1962". Variety. January ix, 1963. p. xiii.
11. ^ "BING magazine". BING mag.
12. ^ "Elaine May in conversation with Mike Nichols". Film Annotate. July–August 2006.

External links [edit]

• "The Road to Bali". Internet Archive. Dec 6, 2016.

chappellrater1979.blogspot.com

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_to_...

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