On the Road With Bing, Bob, and Dorothy

The only Road movie added to the National Film Registry.

In 1940, Paramount Pictures paired crooner Bing Crosby with rising comedian Bob Hope and "Sarong Queen" Dorothy Lamour in the film, Road to Singapore. While they weren't the studio's first - or even second - choices for their roles, Road to Singapore was a smash hit, leading the way to adventures in Zanzibar, Morocco, Rio, and other exotic locales (all, thanks to movie magic, located on the Paramount lot in Hollywood). Indeed, over the next twenty years Hope, Crosby, and usually Lamour would make seven of the tremendously successful Road movies. Through those years, the trio would individually go on to become an Oscar winner (Crosby for Going My Way in 1944), a pin-up queen for the soldiers overseas (Lamour, natch), and top ten box office attractions with Bing the top draw in pictures for five straight years from 1944 to 1948, which I believe is still a record. By 1962, when the last Road movie was released, the pair had transcended mere stardom, having become cultural icons and institutions.

Bob agrees to another one of Bing's life-endangering schemes.

After Singapore, the trio took off for Road to Zanzibar in 1941, followed closely by Road to Morocco, considered by many the series' funniest, in '42; my fave, Road to Utopia, in '45;  Road to Rio in '47; and Road to Bali in '52, the only one filmed in glorious technicolor. A long pause took place before the two were reunited in The Road to Hong Kong in 1962. Through all their travels their characters remained consistent: Vaudeville performers who were not quite honest but never entirely crooked. Bing was the sharpie - the man with the ideas -  Hope was the guinea pig, and beautiful Dorothy the love interest they wrestle over. In film after film, the formula was the same: Bing sang,  Bob joked, and Dorothy sizzled. 

Huge stars on their own, together Hope and Crosby had chemistry. The duo sang, danced, played both straight man and top banana for each other. When not starring together, they would occasionally pop up in each other's films, appearing often in surprise cameos at the film's conclusion. From the first Road picture to Crosby's death in 1977, the pair had an imaginary rivalry. While that rivalry was faked, to an extent, so was their friendship. Not to say they didn't get along, but it was a professional friendship that seldom bled into their private lives. Further, they were busy with their own careers. In the 1940s alone Hope appeared in 20 movies and Crosby in 19. In addition the two each had popular weekly radio shows - Crosby with Kraft Music Hall and Philco Radio Time, Hope with Pepsodent Show. When they worked together, though, it was hard to believe these guys weren't the best of pals.

The pair fight over the beauty that is Lamour, as usual.

To watch the Road pictures is to capture these show biz giants at their peak. I first saw Hope and Crosby in the 1970s on television as tired old men. Hope tried to be relevant with weak jokes on his NBC comedy specials; Bing sang on his Christmas shows (watch his performance of "Little Drummer Boy" with David Bowie to see how painful trying to be relevant can be). Watching these programs I wondered what made them so famous. Then I saw Road to Utopia, and their magic was instantly apparent. These guys were young, vital, energetic, and relevant. Like their peers, Abbott and Costello, or teams like Martin and Lewis that came after, Hope and Crosby together were comic perfection. They paved the way not only for those comic duos, but for Sinatra's Rat Pack and its movies as well (their comic stylings are even in evidence in the Ocean's Eleven remake with George Clooney and Brad Pitt). And of course, they were the prototype for Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman in 1987's Ishtar. I suppose the intangible elements that made the Road movies so successful could never be repeated. It's hard to believe that two top stars today would ever get together that many times, nor would one play the buffoon so the other could get the girl. Agents, egos, script approval, top billing (for the record Bing was top billed in all but one of the Road pics), who would get the girl, and various other factors would far outweigh the quality of the script.

The last Road picture, 1962's The Road to Hong Kong, was the first in ten years, and it brought some changes. For one thing Lamour, now in her early forties, was no longer thought young enough to be the girl both Hope and Crosby wanted, so Joan Collins was hired to play the part instead (though Lamour did have a cameo). Hope and Crosby were not the young and carefree lads of days gone by, either. Both in their early sixties, the duo seemed to have lost a certain edge. Seeing these two guys cavorting and clowning around when their age indicated that they might have been more interested in being home with their families diminished their usual Road movie roles. Along with Dorothy Lamour, the film did benefit from assorted cameos from David Niven, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and a really funny bit with Peter Sellers as an Indian doctor trying to cure Hope of his amnesia. Emphasizing how outdated the Road movies were, some critics remarked on how Sellers' freshness stole the show from the two stars. In 1977, a new script by Melville Shavelson, Road to the Fountain of Youth, would have brought the the old pros together once more, but Bing died of a heart attack in October of that year. And anyway, it's probably a good thing that the series didn't continue. The Road movies were best when its stars were young, foolish, and willing to do anything for a laugh.

Sources: Bing Crosby: Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies by Barbara Bauer
              Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams, The Early Years by Gary Giddens
              Wikipedia page on the Road movies
              Photos courtesy of the internet