Customer Reviews

Road to Morocco [VHS]

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The classic 1942 comedy "Road to Moroco", the 3rd in the "Road" series, starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour. This is my favourite- great songs and zany comedy. Decades before Monty Python, the top-of-their-tree talents combined here created an outrageously original and sensationally surreal comedy! Crosby and Hope were two of the biggest box-office draws at the time, and they enjoy themselves immensely in "Morocco", with in-jokes aplenty (they even make fun of the Road series itself!) and double-and-triple crosses in abundance, as they try to get themselves out of trouble and into romance, Bing the smooth, crooning charmer and Bob the cowardly (but loveable) wanna-be. Dottie is beautiful as ever, as are the sets and the support cast includes a menacing Anthony Quinn. The Johnny Burke-Jimmy Van Huesen score includes "Road to Morocco" (Bob and Bing on a camel- "Where we're goin', why we're goin', how can we be sure? I'll lay you eight-to-five that we meet Dorothy Lamour!"); "Ho Hum" and "Moonlight Becomes You" (a classic Bing number, which he solos and reprises with Hope and Lamour). They don't make `em like this anymore!

A top moneymaker in 1943, with an Oscar-nominated screenplay, ROAD TO MOROCCO is perhaps the most satisfying of the series in which the public loved from 1940-1962. Here, Hope and Crosby often step out of character to comment on the fictional situation and the processes of film communication. Hope and Crosby sing to the camera, and the lyrics include "I'll lay you eight to five we meet Dorothy Lamour" and "For any villians we may meet we haven't any fears - Paramount will protect us 'cause we're signed for five more years". Other illusion-breaking instances are those which refer to the earlier "Road" films. At one point, Hope and Crosby attempt the "pattycake" routine they had used in ROAD TO SINGAPORE and ROAD TO ZANZIBAR to get the best of their adversaries; but when it fails to work in this case, Crosby comments "Yessir Junior, that thing sure got around" After they escape from Kassim and are onboard a ship bound for America, Lamour remarks to Crosby, "I get the strangest feeling we've been through all this before" to which Crosby replies "I trapped you again." The film lapses into total artificiality at the end, when they are stranded on a life raft. Here, Hope goes into an overdramatic "mad" scene and when Crosby informs him that the New York skyline is in the background, Hope remarks, "You had to open your big mouth and ruin the only good scene I have in the picture". "I might have won an Academy Award". The subsequent ROAD pictures were even more blantantly artificial. Only in ROAD TO UTOPIA did Hope winover Lamour. In general, Hope's contributions to film comedy have too long been disregarded. As a stand-up comedian, he is a show business institution, and his timing and delivery have often been acknowledged as an influence on other such performers - most notably Johnny Carson. Crosby's presence provides an added dimension to the series. His casual underplaying is the perfect counerpoint to Hope's rapid fire gag lines. The bantering between the two obviously owed much to their long personal friendship; it always seems spontaneous and unrehearsed.

I have seen all of the Road to's and I think this is the best on yet.I can watch it over a million times and still think that they are funny. They are the best team ever.They have many more great songs in this movie like..... "moonlight becomes you"A hole in my shoe" and my personal favorite "Were of on the Road to Morocco"I think the best scene is when Bing and Bob are in the desert, and they see a Dorthy Lamour mirage, and all three of them sing "moonlight becomes you" and they all exchange vocies. It is a utterly slap-happy picture.I advise anyone who like Bing and Bob to buy this movie! not to rent because you can't ever see it enough!

Jeez, I don't know if you can see the review I'm looking at, but he gave this two stars. If you look at his history, the "disgruntled Dominican" gave "Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town" five stars. I think that's all you need to know. This is a light, funny entertaining film that holds up well unless you're a disgruntled Dominican buckethead.

This is Bing and Bob's finest and funniest road picture by a wide margin. Their interplay and chemistry together is shown to its best advantage here. Bing's two songs, "Moonlight Becomes You" and "Just Found a Hole in My Shoe" are catchy and wonderfully sung. Bob Hope is, as always, absolutely hilarious. His comedic timing is seriously under-rated. It's no wonder Woody Allen thinks he's the greatest movie comedian in history.

There are a number of inside jokes in this movie, and younger viewers will not understand the references to Bob's Pepsodent radio show, Bing's lousy horses and the Kraft Music Hall. But it's fast-paced, genuinely funny and a blast from first to last.

Perhaps offered the breakthrough role for the great Anthony Quinn. Surprising to think this picaresque romp was made in 1942. The picture quality is excellent. If a buddy movie like this were made today it would move a lot faster, contain several nudes, probably a few porn scenes, and every third word would start with F. Also, everything would be dirty. Just before, and during, WWII, everything was clean. The boys were clean, their clothes were clean, the desert was clean, and the girls were sweet and beautiful, and clean. Have we really progressed? Watching this is nostalgic. Many of the lines are witty and funny. We're off on the Road to Morocco is a great song, and memorable. I've always remembered it, anyway. But the whole atmosphere is now a thing of the past.

don't listen to them its good!! I'm a woman and I am not offended by it. People are too sensitive these days!!

One of the best of the seven "Road" movies (this is the third) in the series starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour. It's totally nonsensical - the boys are shipwrecked off Africa and chase after Lamour, who's the princess of Morocco. The jokes fly, some good (many of the best gags are self-deprecating and refer to real-life instances or routines from previous movies), some not, and Crosby sings a few songs ("Moonlight Becomes You" is probably the best). These movies were a whole mind set, and it helps a lot to buy into the sheer goofiness and fluff of them. Let your mind go free and the picture can be a lot of fun to watch.

I'm not going to go into why the Hope & Crosby ROAD films were so much fun--enough folks have done that already.

I will say that ROAD TO MOROCCO features one of my favorite bloopers:
It's right at the beginning. Bing and Bob are stuck in the Sahara desert when a camel takes turns licking their faces. When they see the camel, they're thrilled at their good fortune, exchanging lines while the wary camel keeps leaning back--

Then--PTOOEY! The camel spits right in Bob Hope's face. Unscripted. Right in the middle of his line. And Bing laughs out loud.
And they left it in the film!
Priceless!

The "Road" series with Bing and Bob were landmarks in realm of funny movies and Road To Morocco is, to me, by far the best of the bunch. The "boys" had really hit their stride in this one and they obviously had a lot of fun filming it. Lots of good clean laughs, a bunch of inside jokes and some plain old-fashioned fun.