TV Cream

Films: R is for...

Road to Rio

The fifth Roderoo focuses on two familiar-looking carnival musicians stowing away to Brazil, rescuing an equally familiar-looking hypnotised would-be female suicide along the way. The Wiere Brothers, Harry, Herb and Sylv, turn up in Bing and Bob’s bungalow as a trio of itinerant Brazilian troubadours, whom B’n’B naturally corral into being their backing band. The one gag here is the same one used in the Holy Stone of Clonrichert episode of Father Ted (did Linehan and Mathews glean inspiration from this film? We’d love to know). Basically, our two heroes are trying to keep Dorothy Lamour from a fate worse than marriage by hiding out in the Brazilian city and posing as band leaders, with La Lamour as a sultry singer. As the Wieres speak Portugese only, to avoid the scam being blown, Crosby teaches each brother one English phrase each, to parrot whenever any question is asked – “You’re telling me!”, “This is murder!” and, most famously, “You’re in the groove, Jackson!” Cue much ecumenical folderol when the wrong brother says the wrong thing at the wrong time. There wasn’t much more cinema action for the Brothers W after that – telly and the club circuit mainly, though they did make a last ditch, Three-Stooges-in-4-for-Texas-style cameo as bungling Mitteleuropean detectives in rubbish late-’60s Elvis-goes-to-Swinging-London film Double Trouble, alongside Norman Rossington and Chips Rafferty. That must count for something.

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