HotToastyRag As everyone knows, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope starred in seven "Road to" movies. For no real reason, I started at the end and watched The Road to Hong Kong first! I have nothing to compare this one with, but it felt like a very well-oiled installment, with jokes and references to the previous flicks included in the dialogue, and with chemistry between the two leads that was obviously cultivated through the decades. In this last "Road" movie, Bob and Bing get mixed up in two very dated concepts: a space race with Russia and making fun of the Chinese. There are tons of mimics and offensive gags about the Chinese people and their culture, so if you're going to sit through this one, you'll need to expect and overlook those. With Joan Collins serving as the fodder for the love triangle, and a pretty cute cameo from regular cast member Dorothy Lamour, the rest of the un-offensive script is pretty funny. Bob and Bing have a constant push-and-pull relationship and their jokes are a great mixture of old-school vaudevillian banter and sixties sex comedy gags. While this was my first "Road" movie, I liked it enough to check out another. This one has really funny, unexpected cameos from Peter Sellars, David Niven, Pat O'Brien, Dean Martin, and Frank Sinatra! I can't wait to see what the other movies have in store!

horrorfilmx There are no bad ROAD movies, and I do not except this one from that statement. As someone once said of the Marx Brothers film AT THE CIRCUS (and I paraphrase) in the career of any other comedy team this picture would be considered a classic. It not only holds its own with the rest of the series but I actually prefer it to ROAD TO RIO, which (while still adhering to the Road Rule stated above) always seemed like the weakest of the series to me. It's funny the reasons some other posters have given for not liking the film: It looks like it was made in the Sixties (it was), the stars looks like they're nearing their sixties (they were, and so what?), it's not as funny as the others in the series (in any given horse race one horse will come in last, but he still had to be pretty damn good to get into the race in the first place). And nobody seems to much like Joan Collins. Well, she was gorgeous and a competent enough actress and in a movie like this who cares anyway? It's Bob and Bing's movie and despite what anyone says they prove they've still got the goods and deliver them with ease. I say quit carping and enjoy.

writers_reign As swan songs go this could have used a decent cygneture tune. The best bit is right at the beginning when, continuing the tradition, Bing and Bob are seen as vaudevillians singing, dancing and pattering their way through 'Teamwork', with a lyric from Sammy Cahn, who had replaced Johnny Burke as Jimmy Van Heusen's permanent partner roughly a decade earlier. Plots were never a strong point in the franchise and this is, if anything, worse than most and for some unknown reason Peter Sellars is given several minutes in which to be wincingly embarrassing and utter some of the worst lines in the script. They also jettisoned Lamour as sex object but wisely allowed her a cameo appearance plus a ballad; her replacement, Joan Collins, failed to register and the best one can say about this product of the famous Rank 'Charm' School is that she clearly flunked charm. Following the opening vaudeville routine the plot continues in the way of the rest of the franchise with Bing conning Bob - here given Jimmy Van Heusen's real name, Chester Babcock, as an 'inside' joke - into the usual life-threatening stunts and for good measure we even get a laundry list of previous near-misses including the squid, human cannonball, etc but then it runs out of steam and quickly spirals into complete preposterousness. The banter is still intact albeit a little frayed around the edges but they could have signed off with something a little better than this.

preppy-3 This is actually the first Cosby/Hope "Road" picture I ever saw. I knew it was the last (after a 10 year break) and (for some reason) was in b&w--probably because Cosby and Hope looked better that way. I also heard it was pretty bad. While it's not great, I sort of enjoyed it.The plot was REALLY silly and involves the boys in espionage with Joan Collins along for the ride and a (surprisingly) very bad job by Robert Morley as the lead villain. Dorothy Lamour decided to not costar in this one but she does pop up (playing herself) in an amusing cameo and sings one song (Cosby sings too). There's also a really silly and pointless bit when Cosby and Hope are sent to outer space. And the ending is desperate.Still, it was well-made and Cosby and Hope were a wonderful team--their easy banter is great to watch and they made the worst lines seem funny. Also it's fun to see Collins (who's quite good) so young and full of sex appeal. So, it's enjoyable way to kill 90 minutes. I'm seen better but I've seen worse too.