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Road to Utopia

Duke (Crosby) and Chester (Hope) are two vaudevillians in 1890's San Francisco
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Barnes & Noble down on their luck. While working their passage North to the Yukon Gold Rush, the boys find a map to a Gold Mine. The very map that was stolen from Sal Van Hoyden's (Lamour) murdered Uncle a few scenes before! In order to leave the ship in Skagway they assume the identities of the fearsome killers, Sperry and McGirk. The boys soon discover there are advantages to being the fearsome killers, so they maintain the pose.

Bob Hope
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Meanwhile, Sal has become Skagway Sal after joining up with Ace Lannigan, unsavory owner of a Skagway saloon, in order to get the map and regain her gold mine. Of course Ace has other ideas. The action soon takes off in a chase across the Alaskan countryside. Eventually, the boys are able to outwit Lannigan but Duke is left to face certain death while Chester and Sal escape. In this one, Hope gets Lamour! Well, sort of. And don't worry, Crosby manages to avoid his untimely death.

Why recommend it?

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MovieGoods The fourth sparkling “Road” entry. The frozen North provides a fresh setting after the tropics of “Singapore” and “Zanzibar”, and the desert of “Morocco”. Many regard this entry as the best of the series. I have a hard time choosing between this one and Road to Morocco.

Robert Benchley adds a humorous dimension as the narrator the Front Office thinks the audience needs. After all, he says, this movie was made as a demonstration of how not to make a picture and still win an Academy Award (and it almost did!).

Notes

• Nominated for Best Original Screenplay.
• Narrator Robert Benchley, a well-known American humorist, died of a cerebral hemorrhage three months before the February 1946 release of the picture.