The Road to.........

Films in the Series:

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)

Each film is not simply a comedic film, but a satire of some of the popular film genres of the day, including jungle, Arabian nights, Alaskan adventure, and high seas. The final film not only comes much later, but involves a newer genre; Hong Kong spoofs the spy films of the sixties.

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.

I'm pretty much with Snsurone--my favorite is The Road to Utopia, which I find the best for a combination of clever story and laughs, with The Road to Morocco, which may well be the best in sheer laugh content, very close behind it--but I was interested to see that Petrolino and Bess1971s wrote on another thread that The Road to Rio is their favorite.

"Why?" you ask. (Or maybe you don't ask, and couldn't care less, and are wryly wondering why Salzmank takes so long to write a simple sentence.) I remember reading a book on Bing Crosby years ago in which the author wrote that Rio was by far the best of the Road pictures, and I finally was able to find it and watch it after several years. (Who knew that a Road picture would be that hard to find?) I was woefully disappointed and thought it just plain unfunny for long stretches. Years later, I watched it again and found it very good indeed, just different in tone from every other Road picture--in fact, perhaps closest to Road to Singapore in its comedy. Interesting little picture, though there are still more laughs to be had (methinks) in Utopia and Morocco.

Utopia is also helped by the nonsensical "narration" of the always-great Robert Benchley (who died shortly before the film's release), about whom I learned for the first time from this movie..