Bing Crosby started his career as a radio singer in the early 1930s, but by the end of the decade, he had become one of the top movie stars in Hollywood. Although his early films centered around one hit song after another, he proved his talent as both a comedic and serious actor by the mid-1930s.
Two charming Crosby films which are lesser known are “Rhythm on the Range” (1936) and “Waikiki Wedding” (1937). Although they feature very different settings, the films have a similar cast of characters, that in the first travel across the dusty American West, then sail around the Hawaiian Islands in the second. Bob Burns and Martha Raye accompany Crosby with a lot of laughs. His leading ladies are Frances Farmer in the first film and Shirley Ross in the second. Each movie features a cute animal: Cuddles the Bull and Walford the Pig, respectively.
