On the Road With Bob Hope and Bing Crosby Collection (Road to Singapore/Road to Zanzibar/Road to Morocco/Road to Utopia)

Bob Hope and Bing Crosby + Dorothy Lamour made six "Road" pictures for Paramount between 1941 and 1953:1) Road to Singapore - 19402) Road to Zanzibar - 19413) Road to Morocco - 19424) Road to Utopia - 19465) Road to Rio - 19476) Road to Bali - 1953 (the only one in color)Paramount's pre-1948 catalog is now owned by Universal, which has a spotty record of reissuing these wonderful films on DVD.Films 1-4 are available in three different editions:DO NOT BUY THIS EDITIONFour movies on one double-sided DVD (2004).Double-sided DVDs are one of the worst ideas ever.They fail at an alarming rate.[hint: for ease of navigation, read the review though to the end, then come back and click on the links.]Best, but most expensive, is Four movies on Four DVDs (2002):  Bob Hope Tribute Collection - The Road Show Series (The Road to Morocco / The Road to Singapore / The Road to Utopia / The Road to Zanzibar) (available separately).The most recent edition (2012) is  The Bob Hope and Bing Crosby Road to Comedy Collection Two DVDs, with a double feature on one side of each disc (not double-sided, thank God).Picture quality is equivalent to the 2002 4 disc version, but the price is a lot less.Some of the "extras" from the 2002 4 disc version were left out. The only important loss was the movie trailers.All three versions are closed-captioned.At the price, this is the new recommended version.Annoyingly, films 5 and 6 were left out of each collection.Paramount stupidly allowed the copyright to expire on these films, so they are now in the Public Domain.Lots of inexpensive copies are available on DVD from various cheapo labels.The situation was somewhat rectified in 2010 when Shout Factory released an authorized 3 DVD collection:  The Bob Hope Collection (The Lemon Drop Kid / Road to Bali / Road to Rio / My Favorite Brunette / The Seven Little Foys) Less expensive, almost as good:  Road to Bali / Road to Rio I only wish Universal had the sense to issue the six film collection complete in a nice box on 3 double-feature DVDs (NOT 2-sided!).Maybe even blu-ray.P.S. Missing from my list is the seventh film, The Road to Hong Kong (1962), but it is owned by MGM, not Universal: The Road to Hong Kong  - or -  Bob Hope MGM Movie Legends Collection (Alias Jesse James/Boy, Did I Get the Wrong Number/The Facts of Life/I'll Take Sweden/The Princess and the Pirate/The Road to Hong Kong/They've Got Me Covered) The boys are a bit long-in-the tooth (Dorothy Lamour is reduced to a cameo).Not as good as the first six, but still worth a look.P.P.S. All seven films are available in a boxed set, but its only available in the United Kingdom (issued in 2005).They are region 2 DVDs, which means American DVD players won't play them.Available on Amazon UK (amazon.co.uk):ASIN: B0009W09GETo view them you will need a region-free DVD player.These machines are "gray market" (not "black market" which would be illegal).Removing the region 1 encoding chip is considered "tampering" and voids the manufacturer's warranty.Most sellers provide their own 30 day or 90 day warranty.Look up "region free DVD player" on the Amazon search bar.

On the Road With Bob Hope & Bing Crosby: The Franchise Collection. This is ONE DOUBLE SIDED DVD DISC WITH 2 MOVIES on each side. Weird part is the menu while playing says it is ‘Bob Hope the tribute collection’ but that is not the packaging it is in. Either way it looks very good, does not look or say it’s remastered but is very clean picture & sound, but is full frame, on center of disc reads in red: 2004 Universal release.I Was lucky to get used copy in great condition cheap.Great collection of 4 of the 7 Road movies they made: Road to Singapore/Road to Zanzibar/Road to Morocco/Road to Utopia.Has 15 minute short ‘Bob Hope road to success & 2 short song alongs, nothing special.

Bob and Bing in 4 "Road to" movies. If you are a fan, you won't be disappointed. Now, I am a fan of the "Road To" series, but not the musicals and all of these movies are musicals. My other complaint is more serious, in that all 4 movies come on one double - sided disc. As many of you know the the double-sided format has had many problems playing in many dvd players. Something to think about before buying this collection. The first movie skipped and froze at the beginning in my Sony player, but, I was able to watch the movie.***Spoiler Alert***The first movie, "On the road to Singapore" is the first in the "Road to" series. This movie has Bing as the son of a rich shipping (80 ships) magnate whose father wants him to marry and take on the responsibility that is his inheritance. Bob plays a lazy sort who just wants to hang out with Bing and chase girls. Both confirmed bachelor's have women waiting to marry them if they stay. Bing, with a prearranged marriage to the rich daughter of a wealthy business associate of his fathers. Bing escapes his destiny (for a while) and ends up with natives in a village somewhere between Honolulu and Singapore. With Bob of course. The two of them, down to a dollar and change decide to live a life of ease in a hut they want to call home. Enter Dorthy Lamour, and of course the hijinks to get her to marry each of them.This is a funny film and an excellent entry into the "Road To" series. Enjoy, you may even find yourself singing along.The second entry " Road to Zanzibar" has our duo as Chuck and Fearless Frasier, Bing is Chuck and Hope is Fearless. They play two lifelong friends who hustle people at carnivals with phoney shows where Fearless risks his life sort of. Then they burn down the carnival where they are working. On the run, they continue with their hustling, until they are hustled out of $5000 into buying a lost diamond mine, they soon hustle the mine off to someone else for $7000. Now on the run from them, they end up in Africa, where they are hustled out of their money by two women. Enter Dorthy Lamour. Next they are conned into paying for an expedition/safari to find one of the women's dying father. Just a ruse so that she can be reunited with and marry a rich man named Bradley. Soon, the boys are falling all over themselves and each other for the affections of Lamour.This is an even funnier film than the first one. Bob and Bing are in top form in this film and certainly build the foundation for future films.The third entry opens with a ship blowing up, and our two as stowaways and the only survivors. We find them on a piece of the boat out on the open sea. They eventually land find a camel and end up in an Arabian township. There Bing (Jeff) sells Hope (Orville) into slavery for $200. But, then feels guilty and goes to rescue Orville only to find he is living like a prince and about to marry a princess (Dorthy Lamour). Well, it turns out the marriage is a sham and the man who foretells the future has foretold that the first husband of the princess will die in a week. The princess really wants to marry a man referred to as "The Lion of The Desert!" The Lion in the meantime wants the head of the man about to marry his betrothed. At the the same time, one of the girls from the princess's handmaidens has fallen for Hope's character Orville. Bing and Hope vie for the hand of Lamour and eventually end up in the desert, then the Lion's tent trying to rescue the girls. Here the hilarity ensues, as The Lion is trying to make piece with his lifelong enemy during his wedding ceremony. However, Jeff and Orville want to foil his plans and rescue the girls.This film is hilarious and even better than the two before it. It seems that each road picture is better than the previous one.The fourth film finds our duo heading for Alaska to find gold.But it opens with an elderly Dorthy Lamour and Bob Hope, when an elderly Bing Crosby arrives, they recall their time together. For them it all started with our duo as on stage hustlers, when their hustle is revealed they go on the run. Soon, Bing's character hustles Bob's character out of the money they shared/earned hustling. And, tricks Bob's character into going to Alaska with him. Our duo end up broke threw a comedic mishap, and end up working on the boat to pay their fair. While cleaning the room of the two (MgGirk and Sperry) who killed Lamour's father for a map to a gold mine, they find said map. Of course McGirk and Sperry walk in on them, they overpower and subdue McGirk and Sperry, and upon arriving in Alaska, take on their identities. Not knowing that both are wanted for murder. Through a series of comedic mishaps they end up being chased and seduced for the map. Eventually escaping and running into the real McGirk and Sperry, they once again prevail, and are on the run again, this time with Lamour who has fallen in love with one of them. There is a very funny moment at the end that I won't reveal. I am afraid you will have to buy it to find out what it is.This film reminded me of Abbott and Costello's "Hit the Ice" in many ways. Also, just as hilarious. Another fine addition to the set.*****Spoiler Alert Over*****Overall, if you like this classic high speed type of comedy then this set if of value to you. If not, well, why are you reading this? Don't you have better things to do? Enjoy.Ralph.

I wish this DVD had all seven of the 'Road' pictures, but this is still a purchase I'm happy with. :) These movies are cute and hilarious--and you certainly have to appreciate the fact that Paramount decided to cash in on the fact that Bob Hope and Bing Crosby were best friends in real life, because their chemistry plays beautifully. Hope and Crosby (and Lamour) are perfect foils for each other; there's a reason why this film series is considered one of the high points of comedy in that time period.By far, my favorite is 'Road to Morocco'. The set pieces and costumes are beautiful, and the plotline is pretty exciting.

Very disappointing as it can't be played on my DVD player, only on my laptop, which wasn't what I wanted it for.

Diese Filme waren in den 40er Jahren sehr populär. Für Leute die in dieser Zeit jung waren sind sie sicher eine interessanter Rückblick. Die Bildqualität der Filme ist für das Alter der Filme sehr gut.

Great

There were seven Road movies with BING and BOB.Here we have the first four.THE ROAD TO SINGAPOUR,TO MOROCCO and UTOPIA are all enjoyable.The ROAD TO ZANZIBAR is the worst.It seems that they completely forgot about the script in this one.BING CROSBY and BOB HOPE knew eachother since their radio days and had great chemistry when they worked together.Missing from the collection are ROAD TO RIO,ROAD TO BALI and ROAD TO HONG-KONG that you can find in a BOB HOPE COLLECTION.These were mainly films that were made to provide a little escapism from the war.DOROTHY LAMOUR according to the legend was often lost when BING and BOB used to ad-lib a lot and change some dialogue in the script.Be aware that these movies were made a long time ago 1940-1946.

What a perfect duo. These 2 just have the worst luck in a very funny way. They just don't make comedy movies the way they used to. It's full of clean comedy so it's great to watch with children. It has 4 movies: Road to Singapore, Road to Zanzibar, Road to Morocco, and Road to Utopia. This is a great dvd to watch during those cold or rainy days. All you need is a comfy couch, popcorn, warm blanket and you will be laughing for hours. The dvd is authentic, came brand new and great quality. I recommend this product and seller to everyone.