Blu-ray Review Road to Rio Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)

[Matt Hough]

Matt Hough

Road to Rio Blu-ray Review

Norman Z. McLeod’s Road to Rio was the fifth of seven Road trips undertaken by two of Paramount’s top comic draws Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, and it’s among the best of their wacky adventures.

[review]

 

[FanCollector]

Great fun, and avoiding spoilers, a fun fadeout gag to even things up a bit. The score is great, with Crosby's But Beautiful a particular highlight. (I believe all the songs are courtesy of Burke and Van Heusen; Livingston and Evans were there at the time, but Crosby only used the top boys.) Hope is as sharp as ever (e.g. referring to Gale Sondergaard as "tall, dark, and cyanide"), and Crosby still gets enormous laughs smoothly manipulating his buddy into doing whatever he wants. Ms. Lamour gets to have more fun stuff than usual to do in this one, and she is more than up to it.

 

[Matt Hough]

You're so right about the songwriters; I have corrected my mistake in the review. I could have sworn I saw the names Livingston and Evans in the opening credits, but I must have been hallucinating.

 

[FanCollector]

Part of the perfect combination of talents that worked for the middle five Road movies was having Burke and Van Heusen together to write the songs. Burke did the first one (with Jimmy Monaco) and Van Heusen did the last one (with Sammy Cahn), but they really wrote most of their best stuff together, and the Road movies benefited.

With regard to Rio, I do still occasionally hold up the requisite number of fingers and say "This is murder!" and "You're telling me" when I'm in a life situation which warrants it.

 

[Richard Gallagher]

Kino Lorber currently has the two Road Blu-rays, as well as My Favorite Brunette, The Lemon Drop Kid, and Son of Paleface priced at $14.97 at its website with free shipping if you buy three or more of them.