For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Songs: "But Beautiful" (Crosby); "You Don't Have To Know the Language" (Crosby, Andrews Sisters); "Experience" (Lamour); "Apalachicola, Fla" (Crosby, Hope); "Cavaquinho" (Wiere Brothers) -- all by Johnny Burke (lyrics) and James Van Heusen (music), who wrote another song, "For What?" for the Andrews Sisters, but this was deleted; "Brazil" (orchestral) by Ary Barroso (music), Bob Russell (lyrics). Music director: Robert Emmett Dolan. Music associate: Troy Sanders. Vocal arrangements: Joseph J. Lilley. Dances staged by Bernard Pearce and Billy Daniels. Executive producers: Bing Crosby, Bob Hope.Copyright 25 August 1947 by Bing Crosby Enterprises, Inc., and Hope Enterprises, Inc. Released through Paramount. New York opening at the Paramount: 18 February 1948. U.S. release: 25 December 1947. U.K. release: 29 March 1948. Australian release: 6 May 1948. 9,144 feet. 101 minutes.SYNOPSIS: After a wonderfully stimulating special effects cross- country montage sequence in which our ever-helpful crooner identifies himself firstly as Frank Sinatra, than as Gene Autry, Bing and Bob sing and dance their way through "Apalachicola, Fla", after which they burn down a whole carnival. And this is just for openers. Fleeing from the vengeance of the carnival owner, they stow away on board a luxury passenger ship bound for Rio where they meet and rescue a beautiful heiress who is being craftily mesmerized by her evil aunt. The aunt's two goons hunt the boys down, but... NOTES: Fifth of the seven Road pictures. With a domestic rentals gross of $4.5 million, this was the number one box-office attraction in the U.S. and Canada in 1948. Although the movie did not do quite so spectacularly in Britain and Australia, it was certainly Paramount's top-grossing picture of the year in both countries. Despite its box office success, the film received only one Oscar nomination, and that was for Robert Emmett Dolan in the Scoring of a Musical category. He lost to Alfred Newman's Mother Wore Tights.Best Actor, Bing Crosby - Photoplay Gold Medal Award. COMMENT: Wonderful fun. "The Road to Rio" is an almost perfect musical comedy, wittily scripted, ingratiatingly played, sensitively directed and lavishly produced. The songs are great too. So are the clever dances. The bantering between Bing and Bob was never better and here they are joined by a really out-of-the-drawer support cast led by the spider lady herself, Gale Sondergaard. If you were compiling an anthology of memorable moments in film comedy, this film contains so many classic scenes you'd be forced to give the whole idea away and just use this movie instead. OTHER VIEWS: Even though it's full of "in" jokes, topical allusions and now-forgotten references, The Road to Rio is just as mightily entertaining today as it was to audiences in 1948. Partly due to the fact that Hope delivers his darts with such casual grace and marvelously off-handed timing, patrons not in the know won't realize he's being funny; and partly the fact that the film now has a tremendous boost in nostalgia appeal. It would be hard to better this cast line-up. Not only are the players at their peak, but the script's situations are still wonderfully, crazily funny. And the four main songs are tunefully witty standards that are still hummed today. As a satire on the movie chase thriller, complete with cross-cutting to the last-minute rescue party that here actually arrives on the scene too late, "The Road to Rio" is still an absolute delight. Bing and Bob put their own money into this one, spent it with admirably free hands, and happily received handsome dividends. Good on you, boys! - JHR writing as George Addison.

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 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'.

Considering that The Road to Rio was the fifth in the series, that the formula was down pat, that the plot, as usual, was merely an excuse for spontaneous and not-so-spontaneous bantering by the two stars, that the money-to-effort ratio was by now very satisfying to nearly all concerned, and that Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, both at 44, were quickly reaching the point where their age was working against their image of happy-go-lucky, sex-on-their- minds, slightly dumb but well-intentioned good guys...well, this is one of the best in the series. There's no single thing that sets it apart. If we've watched even one other in the series, we know what's going to happen, like having a funny, loved uncle come to visit. I think that in The Road to Rio, the formula had reached a high gloss. The "spontaneity" of the back and forth between Hope and Crosby is quick, funny and friendly. The professionalism may be there, but it looks like they're still having fun making these movies. The jokes are corny and expected, as they were back in 1947, but Hope and Crosby give them a level of snap and comfort that make us smile. Their roles, Bing Crosby as Scat Sweeney, singer and slightly moth-eaten bon vivant, and Bob Hope as Hot Lips Barton, slow-witted but wise- cracking boy-man, are as comfortable to them and us as a pair of old slippers. They work their images both in the plot and in real life for every laugh they can squeeze. Says Scat Sweeney (Crosby) to Hot Lips Barton (Hope), "Swine!" Barton: "Pig!" Scat Crosby: "That's the same as swine." Hot Lips Hope: "All right. Ham!" Or this: Scat Crosby, "Are you admitting you're a dirty coward?" Hot Lips Hope, "No, a clean one!" These groaners were well aged at the turn of the century, but Hope and Crosby knew their stuff. Dorothy Lamour as the always exotic love interest is here, of course, providing a rationale for the two boys' raging hormones and the subsequent competition that provides much of the plot's backbone and laughs. Says Hot Lips Hope as he stares at Lamour's tight gown, "How'd you put that on...with a spray-gun?" And there are the many asides to the audience that was one of the trademarks of the series. When Hot Lips Hope finds himself hanging off a high wire, he starts screaming, "Help! Help!" Then he turns to the camera and confides in us, "You know, this picture could end right here." But let's not just praise this highly polished piece of pleasurable, profitable professionalism. Buried in the movie is a uniquely eccentric and expert trio of brothers, Harry, Herbert and Sylvester. They were the Wiere Brothers, and a single description fails to do them justice. They were comics, dancers, gymnasts, singers, jugglers, players of all sorts of musical instruments and very funny men. They came to the States from Germany in the mid-Thirties after a successful European career in clubs and circuses. They were born to entertainers who moved around. Harry showed up in Berlin in 1906, Herbert appeared in Vienna in 1908 and Sylvester arrived in Prague in 1909. They soon were a part of their parent's act. In their early teens they organized their own routines. I think Hollywood and America simply didn't know what to make of them. They made a handful of movies, only one of which really showcased their skills and appeal. They eventually settled down to a successful career in nightclubs and special appearances on television. In The Road to Rio they play three Brazilian street musicians. Scat Crosby and Hot Lips Hope encounter them while the two boys are trying to rescue Dorothy Lamour from a nefarious plot. We get a chance to see the brothers bandy schtick with Hope and Crosby. Unfortunately, they get only one chance to show us what they can do in performance, and that scene is chopped up and was severely edited. Still, it's better than nothing. Their showcase spot was in the first movie they made when they came to America. That's Vogues of 1938, which starred Warner Baxter and a blonde Joan Bennett. We get a full routine from the Wiere Brothers, dressed in white tuxes, dancing eccentrically, bouncing and rolling, doing wonders with hats, playing violins and singing. They are funny, endearing and terrific.

Fifth of the Hope and Crosby 'road shows'. Not wacky, just straight comedy as Hot Lips Barton(Hope)and Scat Sweeney(Crosby)flee from Oklahoma and Texas avoiding matrimony. After burning down a tent show, the boys stow away on a ocean liner headed to Rio. Aboard ship, the song and dance duo fall for the luscious Lucia(Dorothy Lamour), who runs hot and cold, because she is being hypnotized by her evil aunt(Gale Sondergard)trying to force her into an arranged marriage. Songs written by the team of Johnny Burke-Jimmy Van Heusen are entertaining; the best being "But Beautiful" by Crosby and "Experience" by Miss Lamour along with Hope's bubble blowing trumpet. The cast also features: Frank Faylen, George Meeker and the Andrews Sisters.