Road to...

Road to...

"Road to..." refers to a series of seven comedy films starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour. They are also often referred to as "Road pictures." The movies were a combination of adventure, comedy, romance, and music. The minimal plot often took a back seat to gags, many of them ad-libbed by Crosby and Hope during filming.

The movies contain many 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 also frequent instances where Bob Hope breaks the "fourth wall" to make side comments to the audience such as, in the "Road to Bali", " [Crosby] 's gonna sing, folks. Now's the time to go out and get the popcorn."

Films in the series

The films have a complex ownership history. Singapore through Utopia were owned by Paramount but sold to Universal some years later. Rio and Bali were made jointly by Hope and Crosby and released through Paramount. There is some controversy about Bali's copyright status, but it appears that all of the others have extant copyrights. Much of this has to do with the fact that several of Hope's early pictures, especially My Favorite Brunette, were not properly renewed by his organization. Road to Hong Kong was released through United Artists and has proper renewals on it.

*"Road to Singapore" (1940)
*"Road to Zanzibar" (1941)
*"Road to Morocco" (1942)
*"Road to Utopia" (1946)
*"Road to Rio" (1947)
*"Road to Bali" (1952)
*"The Road to Hong Kong" (1962)

"...The Fountain of Youth"

In 1977, an eighth "Road to..." movie was planned titled "Road to the Fountain of Youth", however, Crosby died that year of a heart attack. [ [http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2622809] ] Two years later, Hope announced the possibility of doing the film with George Burns, but the film was never made. [ [http://imdb.com/title/tt0056417/trivia] ]

poofs

The Fox animated TV series, "Family Guy", has had three "Road to..." episodes that spoof the original Road pictures. They star Brian and Stewie Griffin, and the episodes are "Road to Rhode Island", "Road to Europe", and "Road to Rupert". "Road to Germany" has been announced as an upcoming episode. [ [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20054572,00.html] ]

"The Road to El Dorado" is an homage to the Road to... films.Fact|date=May 2008 It features brief caricatures of Crosby and Hope.

"Spies Like Us" is a homage to the films; Hope makes a cameo as himself in one scene.

External links

References


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