Road to Bali
Road to Bali is a 1952 American comedy film directed by Hal Walker and starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour. Released by Paramount Pictures on November 19, 1952, the film is the sixth of the seven Road to … movies. It was the only entry in the series filmed in Technicolor[4] and was the first to feature surprise cameo appearances from other well-known stars of the day.
For the album, see Road to Bali (album).Road to Bali
- Frank Butler
- Harry Tugend
- Daniel Dare
- Harry Tugend
Hope Enterprises
91 minutes
United States
English
Plot[edit]
George and Harold, American song-and-dance men performing in Melbourne, Australia, leave in a hurry to avoid various marriage proposals. They end up in Darwin, where they take jobs as deep sea divers for a prince. They are taken by boat to an idyllic island on the way to Bali, Indonesia. They vie for the favors of exotic (and half-Scottish) Princess Lala, a cousin of the Prince. A hazardous dive produces a chest of priceless jewels, which the Prince plans to claim as his own.
After escaping from the Prince and his henchmen, the three are shipwrecked and washed up on another island. Lala is now in love with both of the boys and can't decide which to choose. However, once the natives find them, she learns that in their society, a woman may take multiple husbands, and declares she will marry them both. While the boys are prepared for the ceremony, both thinking the other man lost, plans are changed. She's being unwillingly wed to the already much-married King, while the boys end up married to each other.
Displeased with the arrangement, a volcano god initiates a massive eruption. After fleeing, the three end up on yet another beach where Lala chooses George over Harold. An undaunted Harold conjures up Jane Russell from a basket by playing a flute. Alas, she, too, rejects Harold, which means George walks off with both Lala and Jane. A lonesome Harold is left on the beach, demanding that the film shouldn't finish and asking the audience to stick around to see what's going to happen next.
The music for all songs was written by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke. Van Heusen's birth name was Edward Chester Babcock. For the final Road picture, The Road to Hong Kong, Hope's character was called Chester Babcock.
When Decca Records was recording the songs from the movie, they did not use Dorothy Lamour. Peggy Lee recorded the Lamour vocals.
Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Peggy Lee recorded all of the songs for Decca Records[14] and these were issued on a 10" LP. Crosby's songs were also included in the Bing's Hollywood series.
Home media[edit]
Columbia Pictures Television (in joint venture with LBS Communications through what was then Colex Enterprises) once had the television rights to this film in the 1980s, along with other Bob Hope movies from the 1940s and 1950s. This is evident in a home video release from the mid-1990s, where a CPT logo can be seen at the beginning and end of the film.
Because the film is in the public domain, there have been at least a dozen DVD releases from a variety of companies over the years. However, Fremantle now holds ancillary rights to this film (as the successor in interest to LBS Communications), and official video releases have been issued under license from Fremantle, with DVD and HD-DVD releases coming from BCI Eclipse. A Blu-Ray was released on July 5, 2017, by Kino International.