Astronauti per forza

I liked this movie a lot! The cameo appearances are great and the gorilla space suit/ banana and milk auto-feed scenes are roll around on the floor, tears in your eyes, make you smile when you think about it for the rest of your life funny!

At its most inspired when it breaks the fourth wall ("That's the plot of the movie? Come on, I must hide you" -"From the killers?" -"No, from the critics"!). Of special interest to James Bond fans, as it was released the same year as the first official Bond movie ("Dr.No"), so it got the pulse of the era early, and the outlandish plot could actually be considered a precursor to "Moonraker"! Other plusses include an excellent villain in Robert Morley, the ravishing young Joan Collins and the equally ravishing not-so-young Dorothy Lamour, and a series of funny cameos which I, for one, will not spoil. **1/2 out of 4.

This turned out to be the end of a great cycle of comedy films. Two mega-individual stars, pooling their talents to come up with comedy classics.

Since this was the only Road picture not done on the Paramount lot it has a whole different feel to it and not for the better. Unfortunately the decision was made to dump Dorothy Lamour from her traditional role as sex object for Crosby and Hope to pant over. Joan Collins was years away from her career role as Alexis Carrington. Here she's just not into the same spirit of things that Dotty was. Dotty was brought in and did one of her numbers Warmer Than A Whisper towards the end of the film.

It's been pointed out that 29 year old Collins looked ridiculous falling for 58 year old Crosby. I can see the case for it, but I would remind everyone that four years earlier, Bing in fact took as his second wife, a woman with just such an age difference.

One of the inside jokes of the film was that Hope's name in the film was Chester Babcock which is the birth name of Jimmy Van Heusen who wrote so many film scores for Crosby. Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn contributed a ballad for Bing dueted with Collins called Let's Not Be Sensible. And Bob and Bing get two patter numbers, Teamwork and the title tune. There's a lot less music in this outing and that's not for the better of the film.

Still the film has some good comedic moments the best of which involve a hilarious scene in a Hindu doctor's office with an unbilled Peter Sellers as the doctor. The doctor advises Hope to take a cure for amnesia at a hidden lamasery, a la Shangri La, where they find David Niven committing Lady Chatterley's Lover to memory. And at the end when the boys and Collins arrive on another planet in a surreal ending they find Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin waiting for them.

Among the rest of the supporting cast Robert Morley as a mad scientist and chief villain and Felix Aylmer as the Grand Lama stand out.

Before Crosby died in 1977, he Hope and Lamour and signed to do still another film entitled Road to the Fountain of Youth. I wish it had been done. Road to Hong Kong is all right, but not up to the standards of those wacky days at Paramount.

There are no bad ROAD movies, and I do not except this one from that statement. As someone once said of the Marx Brothers film AT THE CIRCUS (and I paraphrase) in the career of any other comedy team this picture would be considered a classic. It not only holds its own with the rest of the series but I actually prefer it to ROAD TO RIO, which (while still adhering to the Road Rule stated above) always seemed like the weakest of the series to me. It's funny the reasons some other posters have given for not liking the film: It looks like it was made in the Sixties (it was), the stars looks like they're nearing their sixties (they were, and so what?), it's not as funny as the others in the series (in any given horse race one horse will come in last, but he still had to be pretty damn good to get into the race in the first place). And nobody seems to much like Joan Collins. Well, she was gorgeous and a competent enough actress and in a movie like this who cares anyway? It's Bob and Bing's movie and despite what anyone says they prove they've still got the goods and deliver them with ease. I say quit carping and enjoy.

After a break of ten years, this was to be the last entry into the long - running and extremely popular series of "Road" movies.

Space rockets, espionage and international intrigue provide the backdrop on this occasion as Hope and Crosby are kidnapped by the leaders of a mysterious and thoroughly evil interplanetary organization known as the "Third Echelon" who force them to become unwilling astronauts in order to take over the world. The two stars were in their late fifties by the time this one came along and they were obviously due to retire from their familiar, high-energy roles as roustabout con men / adventurers. But, even though they may have been slowing down, just a tad, the generally snappy pace and witty banter of earlier outings remained intact.

Made in England and shot in black and white, this quirky, low budget offering must have been a visual disappointment for audiences after the color escapades of its immediate predecessor - 1952's "Road to Bali". Although Dorothy Lamour makes a brief appearance, she had been largely replaced as the love interest by the younger British sex symbol, Joan Collins. The rest of the supporting cast, headed up by Robert Morley, is excellent and playful cameos by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin just before the curtain falls added a topical touch to the proceedings as Sinatra's "Rat Pack" was constantly in the news. As usual, there are a couple of good songs, the best of which, "Team Work", opens the picture.

Despite its somewhat bargain basement look, "The Road to Hong Kong" still manages to provide a fun finale to the series.