Road to Morocco (1942)

Paramount, 1942. Directed by David Butler. Starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, and Anthony Quinn.

The series of Road to... movies, starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour, won't go down in film history for their well-made plots. In fact, according to Crosby himself in his 1953 autobiography Call Me Lucky, many of the scenes were almost completely ad-libbed, and the plots --if such a word can actually be used to define them-- were very loosely strung together. Yet there's something very charming about watching Bing and Bob improvise: there's an almost timeless quality to seeing two old buddies having a good time, and that's precisely what makes these movies so enjoyable.

On this one --our favorite Road to... release along with Road to Rio (1947)-- Bing and Bob are stowaways on the North African coast who get a camel ride to Morocco, where they will get involved in many a funny situation as they cross paths with the Princess of Karameesh (Dorothy Lamour) and her suitor (Anthony Quinn). Along the way there will be some crooning on great songs like the title track and the big hit "Moonlight Becomes You," as well as plenty of joking and fooling around on the part of Der Bingle and Hope, whose interplay throughout the picture is absolutely hilarious.

Moreover, the film oozes with metafictional elements, constantly showing its awareness of the artifice involved in movie-making and exploiting the fact that the audience was well acquainted with Crosby and Hope's public personas. There's really no doubt that in this series of films, Bing and Bob are always playing themselves, no matter if their characters have different names, but that actually adds to the overall charm of the movie. In our opinion, with such magnificent artists as Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, nonchalance works every time.

Anton&Erin.