Road to Rio

Road To Rio (1947) : Brief Review -

May not be the best, but certainly one of the best musical comedies in the "Road To..." franchise. RIO-TIC in many senses. Just look closely! The "Road To..." franchise is known to everyone who follows 40s Hollywood, so they know what to expect and what to look for. Well, here is a perfect dish for them. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby aren't wasted; rather, they are used every single minute. They do all the things you want them to do, and there is a nice story too. Edmund Beloin and Jack Rose have written a good story for a musical comedy that has the required chaos and twists. This may just remind you of Marx Bros' classic comedy Duck Soup, as the timeline and setup looked somewhat similar. The film is about two inept vaudevillians who stow away on a Brazilian-bound ocean liner and find themselves stuck with a girl. Together, they foil a plot by a sinister hypnotist to marry off her niece to a greedy fortune hunter. She looks like Lamour; she might sing like her, he says. That's what we call solid humour with a slapstick gag. The same goes when he mentions Boggie (Humphrey Bogart). Then you have the Warner Bros. Line that goes smoothly and fine. Jerry Colonna has one line filled with cackling humour. It's good to see comedy outside your regular human brain when the writer really thinks outside the box and uses known things to create laughter. Those 3 brazilians! Bob Hope is on a riot as always. It's a pleasure to see him play a smart fella who can easily blabber something smart yet cowardly. For a change, Crosby is a faulty guy here. He is mad about girls and easily fooled. The bromance works again. Dorothy Lamour looks breathtaking and does well in her beautifully written and visualised role. Gale Sondergaard is just the perfect antagonist. Master Norman McLeod is impressive yet again as he delivers a thoroughly entertaining ride to Rio.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest.

Presently available on DVD packaged with the DVD for the next Road series: "The Road to Bali" Expect the same basic format as in the previous films of this series. As in most of these films, the boys(Bing and Hope) begin as ne'er-do-well struggling entertainers. This time they begin as a song and dance team, singing "We're on our way to Apalachicola". Next, Hope rides a bicycle on a high wire, with disastrous results. He falls and, in the chaos, a fire is started that consumes the circus tent. They flee as stowaways on a liner to Rio. After stealing a suit of clothes, they encounter Lucia(Dorothy Lamour) leaning over the deck railing, as if she's ready to jump in the ocean. They dissuade her and make friends with her. They hide in a lifeboat, then duck into a barber shop, where they trick the barber into a closet and continue working on his customer, especially clipping his mustache. This is very similar to the episode in the prior Marx Brother's "Monkey Business", and I would imagine some other films. In both cases, the situation could have been further exploited for more laughs. Meanwhile, an evil middle-aged woman: Mrs. Vail, has hypnotized Lucia with her star sapphire necklace, into identifying the boys as the stowaways, and to say she despises them. They are given an opportunity to join the ship's orchestra, with "Hot Lips" Hope playing the trumpet and Bing the clarinet and singing. Mysteriously, soap bubbles emerge from Hope's trumpet when he plays(yes, stupid). The Andrew Sisters team with Bing, singing "You Don't Have to Know the Language.

Mrs. Vail continues to try to get rid of the boys as romantic rivals to her brother whom she wants to force Lucia to marry so that she can obtain some important papers and control Lucia, presently being her guardian. Thus, the boys and 2 goons hired by Mrs. Vail play cat and mouse. She offers them $10,000. to scram, then hypnotizes them to fight a pistol duel with each other. I will leave their further adventures for you to see.

The circus fire event near the beginning recalls the circus tent fire in "Road to Zanzibar", which also induced them to flee.

I don't understand why the cavalry unit riding toward the wedding celebration was included periodically. They have no role in the boys' escape from their predicament.

At one point, Hope is assumed dead of a gun wound, then 'wakes up' after a while. This reminds me of some cheap westerns where the hero is apparently dead, then 'wakes up'.

Considering that The Road to Rio was the fifth in the series, that the formula was down pat, that the plot, as usual, was merely an excuse for spontaneous and not-so-spontaneous bantering by the two stars, that the money-to-effort ratio was by now very satisfying to nearly all concerned, and that Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, both at 44, were quickly reaching the point where their age was working against their image of happy-go-lucky, sex-on-their- minds, slightly dumb but well-intentioned good guys...well, this is one of the best in the series. There's no single thing that sets it apart. If we've watched even one other in the series, we know what's going to happen, like having a funny, loved uncle come to visit. I think that in The Road to Rio, the formula had reached a high gloss. The "spontaneity" of the back and forth between Hope and Crosby is quick, funny and friendly. The professionalism may be there, but it looks like they're still having fun making these movies. The jokes are corny and expected, as they were back in 1947, but Hope and Crosby give them a level of snap and comfort that make us smile. Their roles, Bing Crosby as Scat Sweeney, singer and slightly moth-eaten bon vivant, and Bob Hope as Hot Lips Barton, slow-witted but wise- cracking boy-man, are as comfortable to them and us as a pair of old slippers. They work their images both in the plot and in real life for every laugh they can squeeze. Says Scat Sweeney (Crosby) to Hot Lips Barton (Hope), "Swine!" Barton: "Pig!" Scat Crosby: "That's the same as swine." Hot Lips Hope: "All right. Ham!" Or this: Scat Crosby, "Are you admitting you're a dirty coward?" Hot Lips Hope, "No, a clean one!" These groaners were well aged at the turn of the century, but Hope and Crosby knew their stuff. Dorothy Lamour as the always exotic love interest is here, of course, providing a rationale for the two boys' raging hormones and the subsequent competition that provides much of the plot's backbone and laughs. Says Hot Lips Hope as he stares at Lamour's tight gown, "How'd you put that on...with a spray-gun?" And there are the many asides to the audience that was one of the trademarks of the series. When Hot Lips Hope finds himself hanging off a high wire, he starts screaming, "Help! Help!" Then he turns to the camera and confides in us, "You know, this picture could end right here."

But let's not just praise this highly polished piece of pleasurable, profitable professionalism. Buried in the movie is a uniquely eccentric and expert trio of brothers, Harry, Herbert and Sylvester. They were the Wiere Brothers, and a single description fails to do them justice. They were comics, dancers, gymnasts, singers, jugglers, players of all sorts of musical instruments and very funny men. They came to the States from Germany in the mid-Thirties after a successful European career in clubs and circuses. They were born to entertainers who moved around. Harry showed up in Berlin in 1906, Herbert appeared in Vienna in 1908 and Sylvester arrived in Prague in 1909. They soon were a part of their parent's act. In their early teens they organized their own routines.

I think Hollywood and America simply didn't know what to make of them. They made a handful of movies, only one of which really showcased their skills and appeal. They eventually settled down to a successful career in nightclubs and special appearances on television. In The Road to Rio they play three Brazilian street musicians. Scat Crosby and Hot Lips Hope encounter them while the two boys are trying to rescue Dorothy Lamour from a nefarious plot. We get a chance to see the brothers bandy schtick with Hope and Crosby. Unfortunately, they get only one chance to show us what they can do in performance, and that scene is chopped up and was severely edited. Still, it's better than nothing.

Their showcase spot was in the first movie they made when they came to America. That's Vogues of 1938, which starred Warner Baxter and a blonde Joan Bennett. We get a full routine from the Wiere Brothers, dressed in white tuxes, dancing eccentrically, bouncing and rolling, doing wonders with hats, playing violins and singing. They are funny, endearing and terrific.

Another Road picture with Bob, Bing and Dorothy. As always there are moments of hilarity. This one is with the Wiere Brothers as non-English speaking street musicians who hook up with the gang. We first see the Wiere's putting on their music and dance routine in front of a small crowd. Then Bing gets them to join he and Bobs little combo. Bing teaches them a few words of English to get by. They encounter nightclub manager Nestor Paiva (Best known as Lucas from Creature from the Black Lagoon) and use their newfound language on him. Comedy is comedy now matter how old it is and this scene with the Wiere Brothers is still hilarious.

ROAD TO RIO (Paramount, 1947), directed by Norman Z. McLeod, marks the fifth installment to the popular "in name only" comedy series featuring that famous trio of Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour. Unlike its preceding adventures of ROAD TO ZANZIBAR (1941), MOROCCO (1942) and UTOPIA (1946), ROAD TO RIO is no doubt funnier than its initial entry, ROAD TO SINGAPORE (1940), yet coming across on its own merits presenting itself almost like a straight-forward musical-comedy than its predecessors consisting of offbeat situations, talking animals and formalistic Hollywood in-jokes. Certain aspects, however, ranging from opening titles bearing animated names of its principal players dancing across the screen; to the wide-eyed/ bushy-mustached Jerry Colonna coming from nowhere leading his calvary on horseback belting out a long wide yell; Hope and Crosby's "patty-cake" routine and witty comedy lines are true reminders of this being very much a part of the "Road" adventures the public then has grown to love so well.

The plot gets off to a really good start in a carnival where the smooth talking "Scat" Sweeney (Bing Crosby) has his pal "Hot-Lips" Barton (Bob Hope) doing a high wire bicycle act leading to disastrous results before the carnival catches fire, burning to the ground. To avoid capture by an angry boss and mob, the boys make a run for it, ending up as stowaways taking refuge in a lifeboat of the S.S. Queen bound for Rio. During their voyage, they encounter the beautiful Lucia Maria De Andrade (Dorothy Lamour) traveling with her aunt, Catherine Vail (Gale Sondergaard). As Scat and Hot Lips each vie for Lucia's affections, they become confused by her sudden mood changes (from "I love you," to "I hate you," I loathe you," "I despise you" ...) reactions, unaware she's actually under a hypnotic trance by her aunt, whose intentions are for her to forget about these men and concentrate on her forthcoming marriage. Upon their arrival in Rio, Scat and Hot Lips obtain jobs working for Mr. Cardoso (Nestor Paiva) in his nightclub with three odd-ball musicians (The Wiere Brothers) who don't speak any English, before braving Mrs. Vail's henchmen (Frank Faylen and Joseph Vitale) disguised as a pirate and Caribbean dancer, to entertain at Lucia's wedding, to extremely funny results.

In between Hope and Crosby antics and Lamour's hypnotic trance, song interludes by Johnny Burke and James Van Heusen enter the scene, including: "We're on Our Way" (sung by Bing Crosby and Bob Hope); American standards of "Swanee River" (by Stephen Foster), and "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" (by James A. Bland); "But Beautiful" (sung by Crosby); "You Have to Know the Language" (sung and performed by Crosby and the Andrews Sisters); "Experience" (sung by Dorothy Lamour); and "Brasilia (I Yi Yi)." Crosby's performing on board ship with the Andrews Sisters (Laverne, Patti and Maxene), a popular singing trio during the World War II years, ranks one of the film's several highlights. For being the longest (100 minutes) in the "Road" series, Crosby's vocalizing of "But Beautiful" to Lamour was usually one that got deleted from most television prints during the 1970s and 80s to fill in enough commercial breaks during its standard two hour time slot.

This highly entertaining and worthwhile "Road" entry, formerly presented on American Movie Classics (1997-2001), is often hailed as the last great "Road" comedy, though certainly not its finish. ROAD TO BALI (1952) and THE ROAD TO HONG KONG (1962) came after-wards, indicating its popularity was best suited for the 1940s rather than the forthcoming decades. With all "Road" comedies placed on home video and DVD over the years, ROAD TO RIO not only has had limited TV revivals in recent years, but labeled as one being "out of print" by DVD distributors. With the overplayed ROAD TO MOROCCO listed among one of the greatest comedies by the American Film Institute, ROAD TO RIO, with Crosby, Hope and Lamour at their finest, is certainly entertaining enough to merit attention and availability for future generations to endure. (***1/2)