Road to Utopia

source: Road to Utopia

Bing and Bob traveled many roads, but the ROAD TO UTOPIA was their best. The script is consistently funny all the way through--verbal wit and sight gags in equal amounts--and some funny, inventive bits of commentary by ROBERT BENCHLEY who appears in inserts as a sort of Greek Chorus giving viewers an explanation of the shenanigans. Bing and Bob are joined by DOROTHY LAMOUR, owner of a stolen map to a gold mine located in Alaska. When Crosby and Hope head for Alaska (after stealing the map from the crooks who stole it and killed Lamour's father), all sorts of funny incidents come into play with Lamour suspecting they're the real killers. Bing gets a chance to warble "Moonlight Becomes You" and Dotty gets to sing a great Johnny Mercer song, "Personality" as part of a nightclub routine. The plot is too madcap to describe adequately, but it moves briskly through the fake Alaskan snow and provides plenty of amusement for fans of this sort of outing. Memorable bit: Hope, pretending to act like the tough outlaw at a bar and ordering a drink. "Gimme a lemonade...(he catches himself)...in a dirty glass!" Hillary Brooke is largely wasted in a supporting role but DOUGLAS DUMBRILLE and ROBERT BARRATT (as the villains) have a good time with their roles.

Grab that fur hat and coat. ROAD TO UTOPIA is one of the seven lucrative and popular Crosby and Hope "road" pictures. Duke(Crosby)and Chester(Hope) are mistaken for two murderers, Sperry(Robert Barrat)and McGurk(Nestor Paiva),after boarding a boat to Alaska. Afterall there is gold in the Klondike and Duke and Chester just happen to find a map to a goldmine. The two vaudevillians have to squire the lovely 'Skagway Sal'(Dorothy Lamour)to become three million dollars richer. The usual quota of sight gags and one-liners. The humorous banter and snow covered scenery hold this comedy together. The brightest part of the film is when Sal performs her sassy song 'Personality'. Also in the cast: Douglas Dumbrille, Hillary Brooke and Jack La Rue. Can't really go wrong with Crosby, Hope and Lamour.

Bob and Bing play their usual shady entrepreneur characters, accidentally exposed to the vaudeville theatre audience they've been swindling ,with their "Ghost-O, Spirit Game of the Orient" act, when two killers are pursued by the police across the stage, and knock over the table under which Hope is hiding and collecting the money that the patrons are putting into the magic spirit box in hopes of doubling their contributions. This leads to their stowing away on a boat bound for Alaska and the Gold Rush. They get involved with a beautiful gal in search of her murdered uncle's gold mine, and assorted bad guys also after the treasure. Along the way, there are some priceless bits involving a St Bernard dog who tags along after them, Dorothy Lamour singing a naughty dance hall number, the two bumbling heroes impersonating the real killers, feuding over the lovely Dorothy, singing jovially insulting songs expressing true friendship while razzing each other, etc. Before the picture is over, we've been treated to a guest appearance by Santa Claus, a talking fish, and a talking bear, who grumbles that the fish was given better dialogue. Robert Benchley appears overhead from time to time to comment on the action, and the whole story is framed by a modern day setting, with the elderly Hope and Lamour married, and receiving a visit from their old pal Crosby, who tells the tale of his adventures after they all were parted by an earthquake years before. This is one of the cleverest and most amusing of the Road pictures and well worth seeing for anyone who enjoys old comedies.

Oh this one is funny...haven't seen it since High school, years and years ago, but I remember it well...the seen where an aged couple-including Hope, talk about their son-and then in comes Bing Crosby(!!)-where Hope sez to the camera-'We adopted him!'...oh what a riot. And then there is the great scene where they are sledding, and the Paramount stars pop up over a mtn in the background...the constant lines about how, even when they're in trouble, 'Paramount won't let anything happen to us because we're under contract for another 4 pictures' or words to that effect...very funny stuff, Benchley's narration a hoot too. ***, this one is funny and to my thinking the best of the lot.

Crosby and Hope are at it again, this time searching for gold in Alaska. The great lines don't run as fast and furious here as they do in some of the other "Road" pictures, but there are still plenty of laughs to go around. The film loses some points in two areas: the unnecessary and unfunny commentary by Robert Benchley and the simple fact that the premise of the film is completely ridiculous. I still cannot figure out why Crosby and Hope would spend half the film pretending to be two men they know are wanted killers. Of course, thanks to movie magic, the local authorities seem to ignore this. However, these things don't detract much from this very funny film.

This is hardly an original insight, but anyone who dismisses Bob Hope as the tiresome, unfunny comic from those dreadful '60s 'comedies' he appeared in is missing out on a real national treasure - his films up to around 1952 are hysterically funny, and his ROAD entries with cohorts Crosby and Lamour are among the best of 'em. Hope, along with the brilliant Preston Sturges, had restored Paramount to the comedy throne they'd occupied in the early 30s; from the lavish budget and attention to period detail throughout UTOPIA, it's obvious that the studio was not ungrateful. For my money, ROAD TO UTOPIA is the funniest film he ever made (though there are half-a-dozen others close on its heels). As in all ROAD movies, the engine powering the vehicle was the lightning-quick banter between the two leads; Crosby smooth as snake-oil , Hope perpetually suspicious and cowardly. And with excellent reason, as no straight man ever victimized a foil the way Bing routinely does to Bob. ROAD movies always threaded their satires of B-movie plots (this one spoofing Robert W Service-style frozen-North melodrama) with plenty of topical humor, much of it capitalizing on the fans' awareness of the stars' personal foibles (Crosby's rivalry with Sinatra, his investments in thoroughbreds, Hope's disastrous box-office returns in LET'S FACE IT), and there's a goodly amount of what later generations referred to as 'breaking the fourth wall' ( they talk directly to the audience at varying points). What elevates UTOPIA over the others is the sky-high breezy confidence of everyone involved this go-around. The cast and crew, coming off ROAD TO MOROCCO, were on a roll and knew it and they ride that momentum for all it's worth, Hope's constant kibitzing particularly hilarious from start to finish. Der Bingle gets to groan a couple of subpar songs (as opposed to MOROCCO's highlights - 'Ho Hum' and 'Moonlight Becomes You' - this outing's 'It's Anybody's Spring' and 'Welcome To My Dream' are instantly forgettable) but the team's 'Put It There, Pal' is infectious fun and Miss Lamour's 'Personality' is sexy and sprightly. A further note on Lamour - she's luxuriously beautiful here, an ice-cream sundae with curves (why she's never ranked with the decade's top screen sirens is unfathomable: she's every bit the looker that Lake, Grable, Hayworth & Sheridan were, and a better singer besides). My apologies for not quoting any of the zingers from the script, but there are just too many of them to play favorites with. ROAD TO UTOPIA is well worth the effort it'll take you to track down; get cracking.

This is possibly the best regarded of the highly popular seven-movie "Road" series of musical comedies teaming Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour (all of which I've now watched and own). It takes the boys to the Klondike (making the film a sort of Western spoof, a number of which I've scheduled for this Christmas marathon – and to which feast, by the way, there's even a visual reference here); they unwittingly take the identities of a couple of murderers and robbers of a map to a gold-mine. The latter is owned by Lamour's father, and she turns to his old pal Douglas Dumbrille for help in retrieving it – but he obviously has evil intentions (and is flanked by like-minded Hillary Brooke and Jack LaRue). The series got progressively zanier, sometimes descending into surrealism (including a variety of talking animals!) – with in-jokes galore and even the proverbial breaking of the fourth wall (Hope referring to a mountain as his "bread and butter", and immediately the trademark Paramount stars appear around it!). This, then, adds yet another layer of hilarity with the presence (albeit rather too brief) of celebrated humorist/actor/scriptwriter Robert Benchley, whose last film this proved to be. Incidentally, the picture was shot in 1943-44 but its release was subsequently delayed for two years – due to a surplus of war-themed efforts the studio still had in the pipeline, as well as Bing's newly-acquired stature as an Oscar-caliber actor! Though there are a few too many interruptions (for my taste) to accommodate the musical numbers, the songs in themselves are quite nice – and the film fast-paced fun all the way, with the star trio in excellent form. By the way, this is the one in which Hope shows his toughness by famously ordering the saloon's bartender to give him "Lemonade…in a dirty glass"!

This is, unquestionably, one of the best of the 'Road' franchise. It began with a one-off, Singapore, and even the second, Zanzibar, was more accident than design but with the third entry, Morocco, the franchise was up and running and this, the fourth title, builds on the strengths of Morocco and reaches slightly beyond. By now the two male leads are established as performers, in this case vaudevillians at the turn of the century and all they need is an excuse to light out for the applicable destination and run into Dorothy Lamour. For the record we're talking map of hidden goldmine, acquired by Bing and Bob from the crooks, Sperry and McGurk, who murdered the real owner, and which rightfully belongs to Lamour, the daughter of the murdered man. Along with the usual gags, dismantling of the fourth wall, and the added ingredient of Robert Benchley's narrator, are the songs and this is one of the best bunch in the entire franchise, from Goodtime Charley, through Put It There, Pal, Welcome To My Dream, Should You and Personality. Dated, maybe but out of date, no.

Duke Johnson (Bing Crosby) and Chester Hooton (Bob Hope) are struggling entertainers down on their luck who travel to Alaska. Killers Sperry and McGurk steal a vital map showing the location of a gold mine. Our two heroes manage to obtain the map and decide to impersonate Sperry and McGurk which leads them into more trouble than they could ever have imagined. Along the way they meet saloon singer Sal Van Hoyden (Dorothy Lamour) and as usual both men compete for her charms. With Sperry and McGurk hot on their trail plus other assorted villains after them Hope and Crosby get into many tight corners but they still find time for some catchy songs along the way including "Put It There Pal" which is a typical Hope/Crosby kind of number and Dorothy Lamour puts over "Personality" with her usual flair. Of all seven of the "Road" pictures there are four which to me are outstanding and superior to any other comedy films from that same period. The "Road" films have certainly stood the test of time over the years and not become dated. My four favourites are the Roads to "Morocco", "Utopia", "Rio" and "Bali". Hope and Crosby worked well together as a team and in "Road to Utopia" reached new comedy heights. The film is very fast moving with gag following gag, talking animals, many hilarious comedy routines and situations, and even has Robert Benchley occasionally interrupting the proceedings to give an entertaining commentary on the film. The film is told in "flashback" and has a brilliant pay-off line at the end (one of the best in the entire "Road" series). Some favourite lines from the film: Bob Hope (to Bing Crosby): "I didn't think there was one more way to get the cops after us but you found it!". Hope (to Crosby): "Next time I'll bring Sinatra!". (When Crosby loses a talent contest on board ship). Hope (to Crosby): "It may be a mountain to you but it's bread and butter to me". Hope (to Douglass Dumbrille): "I'll take a lemonade .... in a dirty glass!". Hope (to audience): "We adopted him!". The "Road" films never won any Oscars but brought an enormous amount of pleasure to a lot of people during the 40's. Hope and Crosby were a great team and made seven "Road" films in total. They both had very successful careers separately in movies, television, radio and on the stage and were probably two of the biggest stars to come out of Hollywood in the thirties and forties. 10/10. Clive Roberts.