Directed By: David Butler
Starring: Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour
Tag line: "You'll Shriek At These Shieks!"
Trivia: Operation Torch, the US invasion of Morocco during the Second World War to liberate it from the pro-Nazi forces of Vichy France, began 48 hours before its first release
Road to Morocco was the third in a series of Road movies that starred Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour. It is also the most popular of the bunch. From start to finish, this film features one hilarious moment after another, and even with its Moroccan setting (recreated on a sound stage), the focus is never once taken off of the humor.
In fact, the most appealing thing about Road to Morocco is that not a single scene is ever taken seriously at all!
As the movie opens, good pals Jeff Peters (Crosby) and Orville ‘Turkey’ Jackson (Hope) are drifting across the Mediterranean on a raft, stranded after the boat they had stowed away on exploded. Once the two reach dry land, they hop on the nearest camel and head for Morocco.
Moments after reaching their destination, Jeff, in a fit of hunger, sells Turkey to a slave trader in exchange for food money. But it’s not as bad as it sounds, because Turkey winds up working in the royal palace as a slave to the beautiful Princess Shalmar (Lamour), who asks Turkey to marry her.
Turkey’s happiness is short-lived, however, because a foul-tempered desert chief named Mullay Kassim (Anthony Quinn) also intends to marry the Princess, and as Turkey quickly discovers, Kassim isn’t accustomed to coming in second to anyone!
This has all the makings of an impressive story, but most of the above plot points are pushed to the background. That's because Road to Morocco is concentrated zaniness, sustained with fervor and excitement throughout and never once held in check by conventional storytelling. There are dozens of great one-liners, like when Turkey is chastising Jeff for selling him to the slave trader. “You don’t own me!” shouts Turkey. “I know I don’t”, Jeff replies, motioning to the trader, “he does”.
Ultimately, Road to Morocco doesn’t even take its own illusion seriously, and lets us in on the biggest joke of all: that it's only a movie. We get a hint of what’s to come during the film’s opening song, with Hope and Crosby belting out the following lyrics:
Facing villains we may meet
we haven’t any fear
Paramount will protect us
‘cause we’re signed for five more years.
Charlie Chaplin once said, “All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl”. Thanks to the classic give and take between Hope and Crosby, Road to Morocco didn’t even need that.
Hell...they didn’t even need Morocco!
I do hope the fact that this is tagged with its own category means you'll be tackling the other 'Road' films; apart from 'Singapore' and 'Hong Kong' (sorry, Asia) I think they're pretty much all on a par, though maybe Morocco scrapes it. 'Bali' has most of the best songs, although the trio version of 'Moonlight Becomes You' here is a lot of fun.
ReplyDelete