Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

It's called "The Road to Singapore" but I don't know why; Hope and Crosby wind up on the island of Kaigoon in the Southeast Asia Pacific. I guess it sounds a lot better than "Road to Kaigoon".Having seen a handful of later 'Road' pictures, I thought this film, the first in the series, would be a laugh riot but I was mistaken. Apparently the film makers as well as the principals hadn't fully fleshed out their strategy or their comic approach yet. You don't have the zany one-liners in abundance, and if the boys were winging it by going off script it's hard to tell. However the picture does introduce some of the staples to be found in future Road flicks - the patty-cake routine, Crosby's off-hand reference to his waistline, and the general persona of the boys as con men, though that's not quite as apparent here.In fact, a few times it seemed like the picture was trying too hard for it's share of laughs with routines like Spotto the Miracle Worker and Scrammo the cockroach repellent. The first bit involved madcap comic Jerry Colonna utilizing his his google-eyed, handlebar mustached character as an unwilling accomplice to Ace Lannigan's (Hope) hapless spot-cleaning invention. I never saw a huckster go from a buck a bottle down to a nickel as rapidly as Hope did.As for Dorothy Lamour, America's first and perhaps most prolific pin-up girl found a winning combination in this very first team up with the comedy duo who had already thrilled radio audiences with their slick banter and comedic put-downs. Wondering how she'd keep up with their dubious hi-jinks, she wound up following Crosby's advice to look for an opening and give it her best shot. It was good enough for six more Road shows.

Victor Schlesinger, who also helmed the second movie in the franchise, Zanzibar, may well have directed all the Road films had he not died tragically young (51) after helming The Fleet's In. Had he done so the franchise may have had more variable scores inasmuch as Schertzinger was one of a handful of film directors (another was Edmund Goulding) who also composed notable songs for their films - and Schertzinger went out in style given that the songs he wrote, with lyricist Johnny Mercer, for The Fleet's In, were some of the finest in the history of the movie musical. In 1939 no one was thinking franchise, in fact no one was thinking beyond a one-off entry pairing Hope and Crosby - who often cross-talked their way to their respective Sound Stages on the Paramount lot, and throwing Dorothy Lamour into the mix as love interest. The one-off aspect accounts for the fact that for the only time in the franchise Bing is given a solid background - in all the others both the boys are just THERE, usually performers of some kind doubling as flimmers but with no history whatsoever - as the Fifth in a dynastic line of ship owners but even then he has already teamed up with Hope from frame 1 and significantly Hope has no background. Schertzinger supplied the music for two of the five numbers - with series lyricist Johnny Burke - the duet Captain Custard and Lamour's solo The Moon And The Willow Tree but the standout ballad proved to be Too Romantic with music by James V. Monaco, then just coming to the end of a partnership with Burke. Anthony Quinn and Jerry Colonna, who would both feature in later 'roads' (Morocco and Rio respectively) were on hand and the banter between Hope and Crosby was in place but the 'realistic' aspect - Crosby is the despair of his family by preferring work to play, not a million miles away from William Holden's David Larrabee in Billy Wilder's Sabrina Fair, also a Paramount release - tends to impair the free-flowing zanyness of the rest of the franchise. Overall a modest entertainment that paved the way for several superior entries.

Can you imagine The Road to Singapore with parts of Bing and Bob being played by Fred MacMurray and Jack Oakie? That was the original casting that Paramount originally had for this first of the Road pictures.You can tell that they did not have a series in mind because the billing was Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour, and then Bob Hope. When MacMurray and then Oakie became unavailable, someone had the bright idea of putting Crosby and Hope together. By this time a certain rivalry had developed on radio. Both had been guests on each other's shows, forever trying to top each other with unscheduled ad-libs in the script. So the casting changes were made.There's none of the surreal humor in this that characterized the later Road pictures because the formula wasn't there yet. But when you see Crosby and Hope trying to land a fish and later on singing the Captain Custard song, the chemistry is unmistakable.The rest of the score by Jimmy Monaco and Johnny Burke consists of one of Crosby's nicest ballads, Too Romantic and a novelty song for all three of the leads, Sweet Potato Piper. The director Victor Schertzinger who was also a composer of note and Johnny Burke did a South Sea Island ballad for Dottie, The Moon and the Willow Tree.So what would have been a routine film turned out to be a shakedown cruise for a lot of movie fun.

Fleeing misadventures with girls once again, two playboys escape from women (in particular an arranged marriage for Josh Mallon by his shipping magnate father). However when they arrive in Singapore they meet Mima. A first the two use her for free labour, then they want their freedom from a woman but then they realise that they both want some time with her and compete for her affections.The first of the successful Road movies is the foundation on which the others were build, basically meaning that this is straight to formula without the shine and added touches that we got with the middle movies (before they just got silly towards the end). The plot is stronger as a result but it does feel a little ordinary in comparison to some of their later hi-jinx. However the film is weakened by far too many musical numbers, I don't mind about 2 or even 3 but here it was pushing up to about 5+ in a 80 minute run time. While these do give the film a more general entertainment value I prefer the out and out comedy of Hope and Crosby and the songs took away from that.This is not to say it isn't funny, but just that the duo seem to be finding their feet still. The jokes are good and the banter is sharp without being too knowing. Crosby plays the playboy very well and Hope is more controlled than usual – he is actually operating within the bounds of the film and not doing any knowing gags. This is a bit of a surprise for me as I'm used to hope being bigger than the film and interacting with the audience, but I still enjoyed it, he even worked better in the serious parts. Lamour is more understated than later films but it is strange to see a woman so clearly white portraying a woman supposed to be of ethnic origin – but I guess that's the period.Overall this is an enjoyable film but not the Road series at it's best. Instead this is the birth of the series and the formula is in place with a solid plot and songs, personally I preferred the middle movies where they let rip with the comedy a bit more but not to the point of silliness.