Road to Morocco
                              
Director: David Butler
Year: 1942
Rating: 8.0
"We're off on the road to Morocco

This camel is tough on the spine (hit me with a band-aid, Dad)

Where they're going, why we're going, how can we be sure

I'll lay you eight to five that we'll meet Dorothy Lamour

(Yeah, get in line)"

Bing Crosby and Bob Hope singing as they ride a camel.



This is the third in the Road series from Paramount and they get everything right. It comes in at a slim 80-minutes and never outstays its welcome. The script from Frank Bulter and Don Hartman is fresh, funny, silly, absurd and self-deprecating. Both of them also wrote the scripts for the two previous Road films - Singapore and Zanzibar - as well as other Bob Hope vehicles and Butler wrote the script for the 1945 Academy Award winner Going My Way with Bing Crosby, that beat out Double Indemnity. The songs came from Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke and includes Moonlight Becomes You which became a big hit for Crosby.



But of course, people came for Hope and Crosby and a wholesome slice of Dorothy Lamour. Though in theory they play different characters in all these films, that is in name only. Hope and Crosby are always two hopeless vagabonds with dreams of hitting it big and always falling short. But their optimism never leaves them for long. The next scheme in the next town will be the one that does it. Their constant barbs, insults towards one another and willingness to sell each other out drives the comedy. Lamour is the alluring icing on the cake with both Hope and Crosby trying to out-do one another for her favors. Crosby is always the winner with that golden voice of his.




After Hope accidentally blows up a ship that they are stowaways on, they end up on a makeshift raft deciding who will eat who if it comes to that. Fortunately, they see land first. An Arabian fantasy land right out of Hollywood's films at the time. You almost expect to see Sabu walking by. Out of money and with a huge bill for dinner, Crosby is offered money to sell Hope to slave traders. He jumps at it. "Wait you don't own me to sell". "True, he owns you now". Two men bag and tag Hope and he is carried off. Crosby later receives a note from Hope telling him to go home and save himself. That makes him go in search of his friend and he finds Hope in the arms of the Princess (Lamour) being pampered like a loved house cat. They are engaged. When are we getting married oh love one? "When the moon, in its last quarter, silvers the blossoms of the almond tree. That's Tuesday night, about nine". Crosby wants in on that but Lamour says she likes him too much to marry him. Huh?



Hope finds out from a slave girl who has in itching for him that the men who just measured him are not tailors but undertakers. There is a prophecy that the first husband will die in a week and the second will live a long happy life. Well, what can he do but try to convince his good friend to take his place. Enter the Sheik played by Anthony Quinn who plans on marrying the Princess and killing both Hope and Crosby. The slave girl is played by Dona Drake. Dona Drake was of mixed race - white and black - and led an all-girl orchestra that toured. She and Hope kiss and apparently that was the first time a white man kissed a woman of mixed race in Hollywood. Or so I read. I doubt that people knew this though as she passed herself as a Latina.



The film is non-stop good-natured quips and many of them land. They have the easy going comradery between all three down to a science by this time and it is a pleasure to watch them go back and forth. Crosby is the smart one (relatively) and Hope the foil. At times they joke about the film itself or Paramount - through the fourth wall - while in prison Hope recaps what has happened - I know all that says Crosby - yes, but people who came in late to the film don't. At the end Hope goes all theatrical and Crosby interrupts him - "That was my bid for an Oscar" says Hope. They are already making references to their earlier two films in the Patty--Cake Patty-Cake routine. The audience was in on the jokes. It was a big hit. Directed by David Butler.

"We may run into villains but we're not afraid to roam

Because we read the story and we end up safe at home (yeah)

Certainly do get around

Like Webster's Dictionary we're Morocco bound"