Road to Morocco

1942 "You'll Shriek At These Shieks! . . . trying the double - Oh! on Sheikess Dorothy Lamour!"
7| 1h22m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 10 November 1942 Released
Producted By: Paramount Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

Two carefree castaways on a desert shore find an Arabian Nights city, where they compete for the luscious Princess Shalmar.

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Reviews

Borgarkeri A bit overrated, but still an amazing film
Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.
PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.
Benas Mcloughlin Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.
weezeralfalfa Outrageous farce scripted in the exotic settings of exploding ships, journeys by foot and camel over endless sand dunes, and exotic bazaars and palaces, palace girls and sheiks. Most appropriate for kids and those who laugh easily, but I found much of the humor funny. Many consider this the best of the series. However, I find it difficult to single out one as better than the rest.There were a number of moderately good songs, mainly in the first half, perhaps to entice the viewers to expect more in the second half. Bing got 2 solos: "Ain't Got a Dime to my Name", and "Moonlight Becomes You", the latter the most popular song in the film. It was reprised in the second half, with stars Crosby, Bob Hope , and Dorothy Lamour, taking turns singing parts of it. Bing and Hope had an early duet while on camels : "We're off on the Road to Morocco". Dorothy got one solo in "Constantly". The tunes were composed by Jimmy Van Heusen, with lyrics by Johnny Burke. Mostly Dorothy just lay around in opulent palace surroundings, promised to wed Sheik MulBay Kasim(Anthony Quinn), until she met these 2 former stowaways. Evidently, she strongly preferred an American husband, as did the palace girl Mihirmah(Dona Drake). Initially attracted to Hope, Dorothy soon changed her mind when she overheard Bing serenading her with "Moonlight Becomes You". This opened the door for Mihirmah throwing herself at Hope.Actually , Dorothy's young ambition was to be a band and radio singer, rather than actress, which she accomplished. Her best received early films were those in she played an exotic woman, such as "jungle girl", even though she doesn't look exotic to me. In contrast, Dona Drake, who played Mihirmah looked ethnic, perhaps Polynesian. She also was mainly a band singer in her early career and was friends with Dorothy, who pressured Paramount to sign her. However, she soon decided she was better off free lancing.I don't understand why Hope went in the "powder room" to smoke, hence causing the ships in the beginning and ending to blow up? Why wasn't he killed or at least maimed in the explosions??Incidentally, the 2-humped Bactrian camels shown wouldn't likely be in Morocco. They are best adapted to north central and east Asia, with fierce winters.
jc-osms Extremely funny third "Road" movie starring Hope, Crosby and Lamour, possibly the best in the series. In what is almost literally a laugh-a-minute, the two stars riff off each other to the manner born, their timing impeccable and seeming ad-libs spontaneous and hilarious.The classic scenes are more and near between. My favourites include the nodding-heads scene when the boys are hiding from Anthony Quinn's gaze, Hope's hilarious exposition scene, (for the folk who only came in halfway through the movie) and his Oscar grabbing scene at end. There are loads of snappy one-liners too, the stars not too proud to send themselves up - Crosby makes a crack about Hope's nose while Hope spoofs Crosby's crooning. Dorothy Lamour looks suitably exotic and has no problem yet again convincing the viewer of her ability to bewitch her usual three men, Hope Crosby and Anthony Quinn, all as usual. While Bob, unsurprisingly loses Dorothy once again to Bing he surprisingly this time gets a girl of his own by the finish.The songs are fine too ("Ho-Hum", "Constantly", "Moonlight Becomes You" and the jokey title song) and are much better woven into the flow of the film than on previous journeys.All in all, one of the funniest comedies from Hollywood's Golden Age, it quite rightly cemented the reputation of the "Road" franchise and kept the threesome on their travels for a road or two yet.
LarryBrownHouston I'll give it a two because it has a lot of music, otherwise it would be a one.I saw this movie for the first time tonight and it's the first "Road" picture I've seen. I was expecting waaaaay better. Robert Osborn says this is the best of the Road movies. If that's true I needn't bother to see the others. The best thing about this movie is that it has a lot of songs in the first half, but that's balanced out by only one production number with dancing in the entire movie.I didn't like the movie. Neither Hope nor Crosby came across all that well, their characters weren't very charming, the movie was not funny at all, most of the dialog was just lame filler, there wasn't much action, there wasn't much spectacle.The movie wasn't what I expected. I was expecting more "Road," but there isn't much. They quickly make it to the palace and then most of the movie takes place there, until the end. I was also expecting a lot more of the famous "road" style of breaking the fourth wall, wherein the characters talk directly to the audience or comment on the plot. There was only about 4 instances of that. One of those is an example of the non-funny humor of this script:(Hope recaps the plot up to now to Crosby) Crosby: I know all that! Hope: Yeah but the people that came in half-way through the picture don't. Crosby: You mean they missed my song?Those are two weak punchlines, but at least they are actually jokes. Much of the rest of the script doesn't even have any jokes. An example is: Crosby: Remind me to throw you a piece of cheese in the morning. (Indirectly calling Hope a rat).That's not funny at all, it barely even qualifies as a joke, but that's the kind of non-joke dialog that carries most of the movie. Many of the scenes don't even come that close to a joke, just using generic uninteresting dialog like:Crosby: Hey, whadda ya' take me for? You think that you can just throw me to the dogs? Hope: Well why not, you did it to me didn't you? Crosby: Yeah but that's because I was lookin' out for us. You're not lookin' out for nobody. Hope: Oh yeah? Well then why did I pay the check?(the above is just from my memory. It's not exact but it illustrates to you what I mean).And so on....just generic dialog with no jokes at all.My grade: A waste of time.
writers_reign Whenever I'm discussing films with friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances etc and the 'Road' franchise is mentioned it is always Morocco that seems to be emblematic of the series. Chronologically it was the third out of seven but the first one acknowledged by the Front Office to BE part of a franchise. Singapore was intended as a one-off and Zanzibar was a last-minute reworking of a project designed for other talents but by 1942 the Paramount movers and shakers had conceded that Hope, Crosby and Lamour plus wacky situations and three or four songs equalled big Box Office. Having experimented with featuring Hope and Crosby as performers in 'Zanzibar' the studio discarded it this time around in favour of having them stow away on a liner that was subsequently sunk and being cast adrift on a makeshift raft. They did, however, retain the idea of Crosby consistently exploiting Hope so that this time around he actually sells him into slavery which serves to kickstart what little plot there is. As always patrons came to see the gags, both verbal and sight, the 'in' jokes, put-downs and ultimately the songs by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen which were always very good to excellent. Morocco contains arguably the most durable of them all in Moonlight Becomes You but also yields a ballad for Lamour, Constantly, the upbeat Crosby solo Ho Hum and the great title song performed as a duet. Ho hum? Yes and no but on balance more ho than hum.