Bing Crosby

Road To Hollywood and Reaching For The Moon Bing Crosby

This DVD features two Bing Crosby classics: Road to Hollywood and Reaching for the Moon. ROAD TO HOLLYWOOD features Bing Crosby, Luis Alberni and Ann Christy and was produced by producer-director Bud Pollard, who was at this time primarily doing low-budget films with all-black casts, but the year before he had stitched together clips from three Educational Pictures/Mack Sennett short comedies starring Danny Kaye and released it as Birth of a Star. In this movie, Pollard did the same thing with four Educational Pictures/Mack Sennett shorts (two of them directed by Sennett himself) that Bing Crosby had done: I Surrender Dear (1934), One More Chance (1931), Billboard Girl (1932), and Dream House (1933). These were all two-reel comedies in which Crosby did physical slapstick comedy in the Sennett tradition (and did it very well) and sang his hit songs. REACHING FOR THE MOON (1931) sees a robust and energetic Douglas Fairbanks play a financier on whom liquor has an effect as the stock market crashes during a cruise as he woos a lady. It has a happy ending. Look for a young Bing Crosby singing Irving Berlin's Lower Than Lowdown. The film is based on a Berlin musical, but only one song remains (and that is sung for no apparent reason in the middle of the film, by a baby-faced Bing Crosby). Also good is Bebe Daniels as an aviatrix and especially fine is Edward Everett Horton as Fairbanks' valet. Their rapport and obvious affection for one another is very touching and provides for some great comic moments.