The Road to Hollywood

Producer-director Bud Pollard 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." Theaters could get the film as a cheap second feature, and use a big star's name on the marquee.

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. Pollard himself appears on-screen to do a rather awkward narration that stitches the clips together, and ends the film with a short mawkish tribute to Crosby that nominates him for film-star sainthood.

Crosby fans and people who like silent and early sound slapstick comedies will enjoy this compilation, although the complete short films themselves would be better. Others won't be impressed.