Road to Rio (1947)
8/10
Entertaining buddy farce
15 December 2016
Presently available on DVD packaged with the DVD for the next Road series: "The Road to Bali" Expect the same basic format as in the previous films of this series. As in most of these films, the boys(Bing and Hope) begin as ne'er-do-well struggling entertainers. This time they begin as a song and dance team, singing "We're on our way to Apalachicola". Next, Hope rides a bicycle on a high wire, with disastrous results. He falls and, in the chaos, a fire is started that consumes the circus tent. They flee as stowaways on a liner to Rio. After stealing a suit of clothes, they encounter Lucia(Dorothy Lamour) leaning over the deck railing, as if she's ready to jump in the ocean. They dissuade her and make friends with her. They hide in a lifeboat, then duck into a barber shop, where they trick the barber into a closet and continue working on his customer, especially clipping his mustache. This is very similar to the episode in the prior Marx Brother's "Monkey Business", and I would imagine some other films. In both cases, the situation could have been further exploited for more laughs. Meanwhile, an evil middle-aged woman: Mrs. Vail, has hypnotized Lucia with her star sapphire necklace, into identifying the boys as the stowaways, and to say she despises them. They are given an opportunity to join the ship's orchestra, with "Hot Lips" Hope playing the trumpet and Bing the clarinet and singing. Mysteriously, soap bubbles emerge from Hope's trumpet when he plays(yes, stupid). The Andrew Sisters team with Bing, singing "You Don't Have to Know the Language.

Mrs. Vail continues to try to get rid of the boys as romantic rivals to her brother whom she wants to force Lucia to marry so that she can obtain some important papers and control Lucia, presently being her guardian. Thus, the boys and 2 goons hired by Mrs. Vail play cat and mouse. She offers them $10,000. to scram, then hypnotizes them to fight a pistol duel with each other. I will leave their further adventures for you to see.

The circus fire event near the beginning recalls the circus tent fire in "Road to Zanzibar", which also induced them to flee.

I don't understand why the cavalry unit riding toward the wedding celebration was included periodically. They have no role in the boys' escape from their predicament.

At one point, Hope is assumed dead of a gun wound, then 'wakes up' after a while. This reminds me of some cheap westerns where the hero is apparently dead, then 'wakes up'.
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