Directed by David Butler
At lot of people have called this the best of the Road movies. I’m not sure I agree; I’m not sure you can legitimately say any one can be called “best.” But it may be. Certainly some of the best songs are in this one: Road to Morocco and Moonlight Becomes You.
In this film, the third of the series, the filmmakers really start to press the business of winking to the audience with numerous references to previous films in the series. In a sense, they start using a deconstructionist approach to the sequels here by highlighting with humour the repetitious elements and the audience’s awareness of the earlier films. (Of course, they did it for laughs and would find a term like “deconstruction” to be ridiculously hoighty-toighty.)
They also poke fun at movie-making generally such as the scene when Crosby and Lamour are in the boat and comment on the peculiarity of music suddenly rising up from nowhere … and then hear music begin from nowehere.
This third film may be one of the best but I still have a fondness for Road to Singapore.
3½ stars out of 4.
(Originally posted in 2002.)
