Bing Crosby fans will find the road to collecting the crooner`s movies a little shorter next week. On Thursday, MCA/Universal Home Video will release three previously unavailable ”Road” pictures starring Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour: ”Road to Singapore” (1940), ”Road to Zanzibar” (1941) and ”Road to Morocco” (1942). These are $14.98 each; all are closed-captioned.
MCA/Universal has also re-priced ”Road to Utopia” (1946) at $14.98 and created ”The Road to Collection,” a $49.98 gift pack containing those four films.
”Road to Singapore” (originally to be called ”Road to Mandalay” and intended as a vehicle for Jack Oakie and Fred MacMurray) was the very first of the famous ”Road” films, a series of musical comedies that transported viewers to exotic settings. Crosby and Hope play bachelors who have sworn off women-until lovely housekeeper Lamour shows up wearing a sarong.
In ”Road to Zanzibar,” Crosby and Hope play crooked carnival performers who skip town after selling a phony diamond mine.
Ending up in Zanzibar, they meet Lamour and Una Murkel, who lure them into the jungle and introduce them to a tribe of hungry cannibals.
”Road to Morocco” features Crosby and Hope as shipwreck survivors and Lamour as a beautiful princess who wants to marry Hope. Anthony Quinn plays a jealous sheik who gets in the way.
”Road to Utopia” has Crosby and Hope posing as escaped killers and searching for an Alaskan gold mine.
Throughout the ”Road” series, which also includes ”Road to Rio”
(1947, RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video, $19.99), ”Road to Bali” (1952, Goodtimes/Kids Klassics, $9.99), ”Road to Hong Kong” (1962, MGM/UA Home Video, $19.98) and ”Road to Lebanon” (a 1960 TV special with Danny Thomas;
Video Yesteryear, $24.95) Crosby always played a slick swinger opposite Hope as a bumbling coward.
Yet according to Hope, as quoted in the Bob Thomas book ”The One and Only Bing,” Crosby was really ”a simple man who never cared much about himself. Which made him a minority of one. . . . He never said an unkind word about anyone, whether he was on life`s fairway or in the rough. . . Whether he was singing, joking or just living, Bing always had fun.”
He was born Harry Lillis Crosby on May 2, 1901 (some sources claim 1903 or 1904), in Tacoma, Wash. The fourth child of Catherine Harrigan Crosby and a bookkeeper named Harry Crosby, he was christened at St. Patrick`s Church across the street from his home. His Roman Catholic faith and his family`s love of music remained vitally important to him throughout his entire life.
The Crosbys moved to Spokane in 1906, where a playmate named Valentine Hobart gave him the nickname ”Bingo” (later shortened to ”Bing”) after a character in a comic strip called ”The Bingsville Bugle.” That comic strip character had very prominent ears, and it wouldn`t be the last time that Crosby would be teased about his looks.
Years later, image consultants at Paramount Pictures suggested plastic surgery to flatten Crosby`s ears and repeatedly tried gluing them down, to no avail. However, Crosby`s homely appearance and his refusal to put on airs actually turned out to work in his favor, apparently making him more accessible and more lovable to the masses.
Of course, it was Crosby`s voice that first grabbed the public`s attention. In college, he sang and played drums with a combo called Musicaladers, later joining Paul Whiteman`s Orchestra and an offshoot group called The Rhythm Boys, who made a brief appearance in Universal Pictures`
first all-Technicolor, full-length musical, ”King of Jazz” (1930, MCA Home Video, $29.98).
When comedy genius Mack Sennett saw Crosby in that film, he immediately wanted him for a series of shorts, proclaiming, ”Boys, I admit I never heard of a crooner in slapstick comedy, but until we flung `em, nobody ever heard of a custard pie in slapstick comedy. All I know is this boy entertains!”
Video compilations called ”Bing Crosby Festival” (Budget Video, $34.95) and ”Young Bing Crosby” (Video Yesteryear, $24.95) offer some of Crosby`s shorts from the 1930s.
By the late `30s, Crosby was not only an established recording star (to date, approximately 400 million records have been sold) but one of Hollywood`s Top 10 box-office draws. He would remain on that list for most of the 1940s and early `50s, occupying the Number One spot in 1944 and `45.
Probably the most popular singer-turned-actor in the history of movies, Crosby liked to share his billing with other stars, explaining that it never hurt to be associated with good actors.
In turn, his ”influential, unforced style helped other actors realize that they could be film stars without forcing themselves to be anyone other than themselves,” Ken Wlaschin suggests in the ”Illustrated Encyclopedia of the World`s Great Movie Stars.”
On Oct. 14, 1977, Crosby died while playing his favorite sport of golf. But his recordings and his movies, especially those with holiday and/or religious themes, live on as cherished classics. Here are some of the best on video:
”Going My Way” (1944, MCA, $19.95). Crosby was reluctant to play the part of Father Chuck O`Malley, a down-to-earth parish priest who finds himself battling with a crusty pastor (Barry Fitzgerald); he didn`t think audiences wouldn`t accept him in such a ”saintly” role. But moviegoers and critics alike adored this story with its tear-jerker ending (the older priest is reunited with his 90-year-old mother) as well as Crosby`s renditions of
”Silent Night,” ”Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral,” ”Ave Maria” and ”Swinging On a Star.” The movie won six Oscars, including best picture, actor (Crosby), supporting actor (Fitzgerald) and director (Leo McCarey).
”The Bells of St. Mary`s” (1945, Republic Pictures Home Video, $19.95 in original black-and-white or color-tinted versions). Crosby again played Father O`Malley under Leo McCarey`s direction, this time catching flak from Ingrid Bergman as the Sister Superior of a financially troubled parochial school.
”Holiday Inn” (1946, MCA, $19.95). Irving Berlin and Moss Hart came up with the idea for this one in 1933; it was inspired by a Broadway revue called ”As Thousands Cheer” which included a salute to holidays and the song
”Easter Parade.” Casting the leading male singer (Crosby) and the leading male dancer of the day (Fred Astaire) was a real coup for producer-director Mark Sandrich. Crosby plays an entertainer who tries to escape life in the fast line by becoming a farmer, later converting his rustic home into a holiday resort. Crosby`s version of ”White Christmas,” which he sings in this film, was a World War II anthem and remains the best-loved secular Christmas recording of all time.
”A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur`s Court” (1949, MCA, $29.95). Rhonda Fleming and William Bendix co-star with Crosby in this musical production based on the Mark Twain fantasy tale of a time-traveler.
”Here Comes the Groom” (1951, Paramount Home Video, $14.95). Crosby sings the Oscar-winning song ”In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening” and tries to keep former fiancee Jane Wyman from marrying Franchot Tone.
”The Country Girl” (1954, Paramount, $19.95). Grace Kelly won an Academy Award playing the sweet wife of an alcoholic singer (Crosby in a highly acclaimed performance). Writer-director George Seaton also won an Oscar for his adaptation of a Clifford Odets play.
”White Christmas” (1954, Paramount, $14.95, closed-captioned). This pseudo-remake of ”Holiday Inn” originally was supposed to re-team Crosby and Astaire. Astaire had to bow out due to illness and was replaced by Donald O`Connor, who also fell ill. But Danny Kaye stepped in and did a terrific job. Crosby and Kaye play Army buddies-turned-entertainers who throw a big party for their former general (Dean Jagger) while playing a Vermont ski lodge. They win the affections of a couple of cute sisters (Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen) in the process.
”High Society” (1951, Paramount, $14.95). An exhilirating musical remake of ”The Philadelphia Story.” Crosby plays the ex-husband of a soon-to-be-remarried socialite (Grace Kelly) and Frank Sinatra is a reporter hired to snoop around at the nuptials. The Cole Porter score includes Crosby and Sinatra`s duet of ”Did You Evah?”
”Robin and the Seven Hoods” (1964, Warner Home Video, $19.98). The Robin Hood legend is re-set in 1928 Chicago, where Crosby, Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Falk are gangsters who steal from the rich and give to the poor. The Sammy Cahn-Jimmy Van Heusen score includes ”My Kind of Town.”
