“RETURN I WILL TO OLD BRAZIL”

By Raymond Benson

The fifth Bing Crosby and Bob Hope picture in the extremely popular Road to… series begins over the main titles, appropriately, with a lively instrumental rendition of the classic “Brazil,” a tune by Ary Barroso and Bob Russell. Animated stick figures representing the leads (along with Dorothy Lamour, who was the duo’s perennial co-star in all but the final Road title) dance a samba and set the tone for another globe-hopping “exotic” comedy-adventure, this time landing in Rio de Janeiro.

The Road to… series began in 1940 with Road to Singapore, which teamed the dueling popular radio personalities for the silver screen. Road to Rio continues the successful formula. Two playboys (Crosby and Hope, whose character names change with each movie, although their “characters” are always the same) find themselves traveling to some exotic locale in order to either escape a woman, gangsters, or pursue some con job, only to get mixed up in a farcical plot with an equally exotic woman (always Lamour). There are a few songs performed by both men or solo or with Lamour, comic hijinks (especially from Hope), and even some action and adventure.

This time around Crosby and Hope are big band musicians named, respectively, Scat and “Hot Lips” (because Hope’s character plays trumpet). The movie begins exactly like Road to Zanzibar—the boys are working in a traveling carnival and accidentally cause a fire that burns down the outfit. The organizers are out for blood, so they chase our hapless heroes to the Louisiana pier, where they stowaway on a ship to Brazil. On the boat, they meet Lucia (Lamour), a wealthy young woman who is controlled by her conniving Aunt Catherine (Gale Sondergaard). Catherine wants to marry Lucia to her brother, which somehow will transfer Lucia’s fortune to her because of some mysterious “papers” (the MacGuffin of the plot; they are always called “the papers” and become ludicrously significant, and yet no one knows their contents!). To get Lucia to do her bidding, Catherine uses hypnotism (apparently a faddish plot device in movies of the period). Scat and Hot Lips both fall in love with Lucia and she falls in love with first one of them and then both—just like in all the other Road to… movies. Ultimately, the goal is to rescue Lucia from the aunt and her goons.

There are funny bits, to be sure, but if one is watching the series in chronological order, Road to Rio seems a little tired. It’s as if we’ve seen it all before—which is probably intentional—but we can feel them reaching for laughs. Two highlights are the a) the musical number with the Andrews Sisters, who have a wonderful cameo; and b) the antics of the zany Wiere Brothers, Eastern European comics patterned after the Three Stooges who, in this case, play Brazilians. Look for Hope sidekick Jerry Colonna is another funny bit during the climax of the movie (“Isn’t it exciting?” he asks the audience, breaking the fourth wall).

Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray release looks good in its 1920x1080p restoration. Alas, there are no supplements included save for trailers of other Kino Lorber releases.

Road to Rio is for fans of the Crosby-Hope series, the actors, or musical-comedies in general. The rest of the world will be amused for 100 minutes, after which they’ll forget it or likely confuse it with other Road to… titles they may have seen.

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