Road to Bali | |
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Directed by | Hal Walker |
Screenplay by | |
Story by |
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Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | George Barnes |
Edited by | Archie Marshek |
Music by | Joseph J. Lilley |
Color process | Technicolor |
Production companies | Bing Crosby Productions Hope Enterprises |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 91 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $3 million (USA) [2] 43,450 admissions (France) [3] |
Road to Bali is a 1952 American comedy film directed by Hal Walker and starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour. Released by Paramount Pictures on November 19, 1952, the film is the sixth of the seven Road to ... movies. It was the only entry in the series filmed in Technicolor [4] and was the first to feature surprise cameo appearances from other well-known stars of the day.
George and Harold, American song-and-dance men performing in Melbourne, Australia, leave in a hurry to avoid various marriage proposals. They end up in Darwin, where they take jobs as deep sea divers for a prince. They are taken by boat to an idyllic island on the way to Bali, Indonesia. They vie for the favors of exotic (and half-Scottish) Princess Lala, a cousin of the Prince. A hazardous dive produces a chest of priceless jewels, which the Prince plans to claim as his own.
After escaping from the Prince and his henchmen, the three are shipwrecked and washed up on another island. Lala is now in love with both of the boys and can't decide which to choose. However, once the natives find them, she learns that in their society, a woman may take multiple husbands, and declares she will marry them both. While the boys are prepared for the ceremony, both thinking the other man lost, plans are changed. She's being unwillingly wed to the already much-married King, while the boys end up married to each other.
Displeased with the arrangement, a volcano god initiates a massive eruption. After fleeing, the three end up on yet another beach where Lala chooses George over Harold. An undaunted Harold conjures up Jane Russell from a basket by playing a flute. Alas, she, too, rejects Harold, which means George walks off with both Lala and Jane. A lonesome Harold is left on the beach, demanding that the film shouldn't finish and trying unsuccessfully to keep the words "The End" from appearing on the screen.
Among the celebrities who made token "gag" appearances in this film are bandleader Bob Crosby (Bing's brother), Humphrey Bogart, by way of a clip from The African Queen , Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, and Jane Russell, as her character from the film Son of Paleface (1952). The cameo by Martin and Lewis was part of a 'comedy trade' whereby they made an appearance in this movie while Hope and Crosby appeared in Martin and Lewis's Scared Stiff the following year. Martin and Lewis also made films for Paramount at the time.
Road to Bali was the first Road to... picture since Road to Rio (1947), and was known during production as The Road to Hollywood. It was the sixth film in the series, the next to last, as well as the final Road film in which Dorothy Lamour's role would be the female lead. (Nine years later, The Road to Hong Kong instead featured Joan Collins, with a cameo by Lamour.) Filming started on April 21, 1952, and continued until July of the same year.
Road to Bali was a co-production of Bing Crosby Enterprises, Hope Enterprises and Paramount. [5]
The giant squid that threatens Bob Hope in an underwater scene was previously seen attacking Ray Milland in the Paramount production Reap the Wild Wind (1942), directed by Cecil B. DeMille. The erupting volcano climax was taken directly from the Paramount production Aloma of the South Seas (1941), also starring Lamour.
In keeping with the film's initial setting of Melbourne, Australia, many of the jokes contain references to Argyle socks, Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba, Tasmanian-born Errol Flynn, and a dance routine featuring Scottish bagpipes.
As with the other Road movies, Bob Hope breaks the "fourth wall" several times to make side comments to the audience. For example, as the music for a song sung by Bing Crosby begins, Hope looks to the camera and says, "He's gonna sing, folks. Now's the time to go out and get the popcorn."
Crosby breaks the fourth wall after Hope "notices" the audience is paying attention when he's about to tell Crosby how he escaped from the giant squid. Hope and Crosby walk away from the camera and Hope tells his story in exaggerated pantomime (out of earshot). Crosby then walks back toward the audience and shrugs at the camera.
Hope Enterprises owned one-third of the film and Bob Hope wrote about this in his book This Is on Me.
"There are other pleasant things about owning part of a picture. In the Road to Bali there was a beach scene for which tons of beautiful white sand had been trucked in from Pebble Beach. I had just put in a one-hole golf course at my house on Moorpark Street in North Hollywood. I had four sand traps standing empty, with nothing in them in which my friends could leave their hoof prints. When I saw that sand a light switched on in my head.
“We own two-thirds of this sand, don’t we?” I asked. “Sure,” Bing said. “Why?” “Well,” I replied, “I’d like some of it for my course at home.” When he said, “Why not?” I called the prop man and said, “Take ten truck-loads of this sand out to my house when we’re done with it.” “No dice,” he said. “This is Paramount’s sand.”
Bing and I had another talk with the boys in the front office. As a result, part of the Road to Bali is in my back yard. [6]
Paramount hired the Bijou Theatre in New York City on November 14, 1952, to preview the film to exhibitors and critics. [7] Hope was not happy that Paramount only spent $150,000 promoting the film compared to the $300-$400,000 he expected. [8] The film opened in the United States on December 25, 1952, and opened in fourth position at the box-office. [1] [9] The New York premiere of the film took place at the Astor Theatre on January 29, 1953.
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times was very enthusiastic in his review of January 30, 1953:
"it is apparent that this veteran and camera-scarred team is the neatest, smoothest combo of comics now working the fun side of the screen. Apart, they may be very funny or clever or quaint or what you will, according to where you are sitting and what sort of picture they’re in. But together, and in a 'Road' picture, with the consequent freedom of style and reckless impulse that goes with it, they are pretty nigh nonpareil. At least, that's the word of this reviewer who spent a small part of yesterday falling out of a seat at the Astor while desperately clutching his sides. The reason? Quite simply, Road to Bali is a whoopingly hilarious film, full of pure crazy situations and deliciously discourteous gags, all played with evident relish and split-second timing by the team." [10]
Variety was more cautious, having seen a preview, and their comments may have resulted in the removal of a couple of scenes:
"Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour are back again in another of Paramount’s highway sagas, this time in Technicolor, with nonsensical amusement its only destination. That end is reached eventually, but the road isn’t a smooth highway and the entertainment occasionally falters. Overall, however, it serves its intended purpose satisfactorily and the grossing prospects are okay...Hal Walker’s direction is geared to the free-wheeling spirit that dominates the script and does well by it, as do the three stars and the featured cast." [11]
An extended choreographed version of "The Road to Bali" song which was cut from the final print has surfaced in recent years, and Paramount chief Adolph Zukor revealed in his autobiography that an expensive water ballet sequence was cut from the film too. [12]
The music for all songs was written by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke. Van Heusen's birth name was Edward Chester Babcock. For the final Road picture, The Road to Hong Kong , Hope's character was called Chester Babcock.
When Decca Records was recording the songs from the movie, they did not use Dorothy Lamour. Peggy Lee recorded the Lamour vocals.
Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Peggy Lee recorded all of the songs for Decca Records [14] and these were issued on a 10" LP. Crosby's songs were also included in the Bing's Hollywood series.
Road to Bali was parodied in 1953 in the animated short Alley to Bali , with Woody Woodpecker and Buzz Buzzard in the Hope and Crosby roles. The cartoon was released by Universal Studios, which currently owns the first four Road to... films.
The film was copyrighted under registration LP2200 1 January 1953. That registration entry also shows "in notice: 1952", meaning that is the year in the copyright notice on the film. The copyright was renewed under RE105899 dated 1 September 1981. [15] However, according to copyright law, when the "in notice" year is earlier than the calendar year of the official registration, the copyright term begins in the earlier year (1952 in this case). [16] Therefore, for films registered for copyright in 1950 and later, the window for a valid renewal was the 28th calendar year of the original copyright term. [17] For Road to Bali, the 28th year was 1980, which means the film had already fallen into the public domain when the copyright was renewed in 1981.
Columbia Pictures Television (in joint venture with LBS Communications through what was then Colex Enterprises) once had the television rights to this film in the 1980s, along with other Bob Hope movies from the 1940s and 1950s. This is evident in a home video release from the mid-1990s, where a CPT logo can be seen at the beginning and end of the film.
Because the film is in the public domain, there have been at least a dozen DVD releases from a variety of companies over the years. However, Fremantle now holds ancillary rights to this film (as the successor in interest to LBS Communications), and official video releases have been issued under license from Fremantle, with DVD and HD-DVD releases coming from BCI Eclipse. A DVD and Blu-Ray were released on July 5, 2017, by Kino International.
Road to Morocco is a 1942 American comedy film starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour, and featuring Anthony Quinn and Dona Drake. Written by Frank Butler and Don Hartman and directed by David Butler, it’s the third of the "Road to ..." films. It was preceded by Road to Zanzibar (1941) and followed by Road to Utopia (1946). The story is about two fast-talking guys cast away on a desert shore and sold into slavery to a princess. In 1996, Road to Morocco was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Dorothy Lamour was an American actress and singer. She is best remembered for having appeared in the Road to... movies, a series of successful comedies starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope.
Road to Rio is a 1947 American semimusical comedy film directed by Norman Z. McLeod and starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour. Written by Edmund Beloin and Jack Rose, the film is about two inept vaudevillians who stow away on a Brazilian-bound ocean liner. Once in Brazil, they foil a plot by a sinister hypnotist to marry off her niece to a greedy fortune hunter. Road to Rio was the fifth of the "Road to ..." series.
Scared Stiff is a 1953 American supernatural fiction-themed comedy horror semi-musical film, directed by George Marshall and starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. One of the 17 films made by the Martin and Lewis team, it was released on April 27, 1953 by Paramount Pictures. It is the fourth screen adaptation of the 1909 play The Ghost Breaker by Paul Dickey and Charles W. Goddard, previously filmed under that title in 1914 and 1922 and as The Ghost Breakers in 1940, also directed by George Marshall and starring Bob Hope.
My Favorite Brunette is a 1947 American romantic comedy film and film noir parody, directed by Elliott Nugent and starring Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour. Written by Edmund Beloin and Jack Rose, the film is about a baby photographer on death row in San Quentin State Prison who tells reporters his history. While taking care of his private-eye neighbor's office, he is asked by an irresistible baroness to find a missing baron, which initiates a series of confusing but sinister events in a gloomy mansion and a private sanatorium. Spoofing movie detectives and the film noir style, the film features Lon Chaney Jr. playing Willie, a character based on his Of Mice and Men role Lennie; Peter Lorre as Kismet, a comic take on his many film noir roles; and cameo appearances by film noir regular Alan Ladd and Hope partner Bing Crosby. Sequences were filmed in San Francisco and Pebble Beach, California.
The Road to Hong Kong is a 1962 British semi-musical comedy film directed by Norman Panama and starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, as well as Joan Collins, with an extended cameo featuring Dorothy Lamour in the setting of Hong Kong under British Rule. This was the seventh and final installment in the Road to ... series and the only one made without the involvement of Paramount Pictures, though references to the others in the series are made in the film and shown in Maurice Binder's opening title sequence.
Road to ... is a series of seven comedy films starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour. They are also often referred to as the "Road" pictures or the "Road" series. The movies were a combination of adventure, comedy, romance, and music. The minimal plot often took a back seat to gags, which appeared improvised but were usually scripted.
Here Comes the Groom is a 1951 American musical romantic comedy film produced and directed by Frank Capra and starring Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman. Based on a story by Robert Riskin and Liam O'Brien, the film is about a foreign correspondent who has five days to win back his former fiancée, or he'll lose the orphans he adopted. Filmed from late November 1950 to January 29, 1951, the film was released in the United States by Paramount Pictures on September 20, 1951.
Road to Singapore is a 1940 American semi-musical comedy film directed by Victor Schertzinger and starring Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour and Bob Hope. Based on a story by Harry Hervey, the film is about two playboys trying to avoid romances on the fictional island of Kaigoon, where they meet a beautiful woman. Distributed by Paramount Pictures, the film marked the debut of the long-running and popular "Road to ..." series of pictures spotlighting the trio, seven in all. The supporting cast features Charles Coburn, Anthony Quinn, and Jerry Colonna.
Road to Zanzibar is a 1941 American semi-musical comedy film directed by Victor Schertzinger and starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour, and marked the second of seven pictures in the popular "Road to ..." series made by the trio. It takes place in the Sultanate of Zanzibar. It was produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Money From Home is a 1953 American comedy film starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. The comedy was the first for the Martin and Lewis team to be shot in color and was their only film in 3-D. The picture was premiered as a special preview screening across the U.S. on New Year's Eve, 1953.
Variety Girl is a 1947 American musical comedy film directed by George Marshall and starring Mary Hatcher, Olga San Juan, DeForest Kelley, Frank Ferguson, Glenn Tryon, Nella Walker, Torben Meyer, Jack Norton, and William Demarest. It was produced by Paramount Pictures. Numerous Paramount contract players and directors make cameos or perform songs, with particularly large amounts of screen time featuring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. Among many others, the studio contract players include Gary Cooper, Alan Ladd, Paulette Goddard, Ray Milland, William Holden, Burt Lancaster, Robert Preston, Veronica Lake, William Bendix, Barbara Stanwyck and Paula Raymond.
Dixie is a 1943 American biographical film of composer and songwriter Daniel Decatur Emmett directed by A. Edward Sutherland and starring Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour. Filmed in Technicolor, Dixie was a moderate success at the box office, and introduced one of Crosby's most popular songs, "Sunday, Monday, or Always". Critical reception to the film was mixed, however.
Star Spangled Rhythm is a 1942 American all-star cast musical film made by Paramount Pictures during World War II as a morale booster. Many of the Hollywood studios produced such films during the war, with the intent of entertaining the troops overseas and civilians back home and to encourage fundraising – as well as to show the studios' patriotism. This film was also the first released by Paramount to be shown for 8 weeks.
This is a selection of films and television appearances by British-American comedian and actor Bob Hope (1903-2003). Hope, a former boxer, began his acting career in 1925 in various vaudeville acts and stage performances
The Road to Hollywood is a 1947 American film released by Astor Pictures that is a combination of several of Bing Crosby's Educational Pictures short subjects. The title was designed to draft off Paramount Pictures' "Road to..." film series starring Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour; Hope and Lamour do not appear in the film.
Hal Walker was an American film director. He was known for doing some of the earliest Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis films such as At War with the Army and Sailor Beware and some with the team of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, directing Road to Utopia and Road to Bali.
The Road to Hong Kong is a 1962 soundtrack album issued by Liberty Records from the film of the same name. The film starred Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Joan Collins and Robert Morley with cameos from Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Dorothy Lamour, Peter Sellers and David Niven. Robert Farnon conducted the music for the film. All the songs were written by Jimmy Van Heusen (music) and Sammy Cahn (lyrics). Robert Farnon wrote four orchestral pieces for the soundtrack and these are annotated in the listing.
Road to Bali is a Decca Records studio album by Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Peggy Lee of songs featured in the film Road to Bali released in 1952. All of the songs were written by Jimmy Van Heusen (music) and Johnny Burke (lyrics). The songs were featured on a 10” vinyl LP numbered DL 5444 and in a 3-disc 45rpm box set numbered 9-375.
Road to Utopia is a 1946 American semi-musical comedy film directed by Hal Walker and starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour. Filmed in 1943 but not released until 1946, Road to Utopia is the fourth film of the "Road to ..." series. Written by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, the film is about two vaudeville performers at the turn of the twentieth century who go to Alaska to make their fortune. Along the way they find a map to a secret gold mine. In 1947, Road to Utopia received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.