The 'Road' movies are the kind of films that used to be programmed on British TV in the late '70s/early '80s on a (usually rainy) Sunday afternoon, when there was little else to do except play board games. I watched them when I was young and remember finding them relatively amusing at the time—well, more fun than a game of Mousetrap (all that setting up the plastic pieces for it not to work!).
Having just watched Road To Bali, my first Road trip since I was a kid, I'm wondering what the hell I was thinking: the film is a horribly antiquated comedy with gags well past their sell-by-date and dull song and dance routines. The plot is all over the place, but mainly consists of our two happy-go-lucky heroes, George Cochran (Bing Crosby) and Harold Gridley (Bob Hope) arguing about who is going to marry beautiful Princess Lala (Dorothy Lamour), who they meet after applying for jobs as deep sea divers, their mission to retrieve a long sunken treasure guarded by a massive squid.
The vaudevillian jokes (scripted and ad-libbed), many of which were topical at the time, come thick and fast, but unless you're an octogenarian (and still blessed with your hearing and your marbles), I doubt very much if you'll find very many of them funny because you simply won't 'get' them (I'm fast approaching fifty and many of the quips sailed way over my head). Fortunately, the presence of the gorgeous Dorothy Lamour helps matters a lot, and there are a couple of fun, silly moments featuring the giant squid and an amorous gorilla, but with such dreadful gags and unmemorable songs, the hour and a half really felt like a lot longer.
***According to other comments here on IMDb, 'Bali' is one of the weaker Road movies. If I ever decide to take another trip down memory lane with Bing and Bob, I sure hope they're right.***
Having just watched Road To Bali, my first Road trip since I was a kid, I'm wondering what the hell I was thinking: the film is a horribly antiquated comedy with gags well past their sell-by-date and dull song and dance routines. The plot is all over the place, but mainly consists of our two happy-go-lucky heroes, George Cochran (Bing Crosby) and Harold Gridley (Bob Hope) arguing about who is going to marry beautiful Princess Lala (Dorothy Lamour), who they meet after applying for jobs as deep sea divers, their mission to retrieve a long sunken treasure guarded by a massive squid.
The vaudevillian jokes (scripted and ad-libbed), many of which were topical at the time, come thick and fast, but unless you're an octogenarian (and still blessed with your hearing and your marbles), I doubt very much if you'll find very many of them funny because you simply won't 'get' them (I'm fast approaching fifty and many of the quips sailed way over my head). Fortunately, the presence of the gorgeous Dorothy Lamour helps matters a lot, and there are a couple of fun, silly moments featuring the giant squid and an amorous gorilla, but with such dreadful gags and unmemorable songs, the hour and a half really felt like a lot longer.
***According to other comments here on IMDb, 'Bali' is one of the weaker Road movies. If I ever decide to take another trip down memory lane with Bing and Bob, I sure hope they're right.***