Train Ride to Hollywood is a 1975 American comedy/fantasy pop musical directed by Charles R. Rondeau and starring the Kansas City R&B group Bloodstone.

Draffen and Williams recognize the folly of continuing to pretend to be railroad workers, and Love attempts to romance the sheik's wife Saturday (Tracy Reed) in a sleeper car, during which he sings his original song "What Do I Have To Do?"

McCormick, meanwhile, meets a black female professor of African-American rhythms and charms her despite her skepticism of his rhythmic abilities while he sings his original song "Hooray For Romance."

The merriment is interrupted by the sheik walking in looking for the man who was with his seventh wife, then the lights go out; when they come back on, MacDonald and Eddy have been murdered - strangled, it turns out, in someone's underarms.

At the gravesite, Bogart offers a eulogy for both Hollywood legends, when a car suddenly pulls up and Benny and George, two elderly alumni of the local college, step out.

Worse still, if the college goes under, their star football player - Ronald Reagan - might quit school and become an actor or even a politician who could get elected President of the United States one day.

Williams enters the boxing ring at the local arena, declaring himself physically fit (singing "I'm in Shape"), but it turns out that the champion is a gorilla.

The fight, being called by a sportscaster in the style of Howard Cosell, goes badly for Williams until his bandmates feed him grits between rounds; he then rallies and defeats the gorilla, saving the college.

The shadowy figure reveals himself to be Johnny Strabler, who mockingly paraphrases Charles Love's comment from the beginning of the film - "I want to live the movies" - before a band of hooded henchmen subdues the group members.

After Love, McCormick and Draffen have been killed and made into wax figures, Johnny is about to begin the process of doing the same to Williams, promising him immortality, "the greatest role anyone could ask for."

Bloodstone take to the stage and perform Barrett Strong's hit song "Money (That's What I Want)" to the delight of the audience (and the producer), bringing the movie to an end.

Rondeau did not like the script, however, and Braunstein called Gordon, who was serving in the Israeli army, and he turned out to be on active duty in the Golan Heights.

"[4] Train Ride to Hollywood premiered on October 29, 1975, in theaters in the Detroit area, with plans for a general release in early 1976.

[1] However, it was soon pulled from release due to legal issues between the filmmakers and actor Tom Laughlin's Billy Jack Enterprises, the distribution company.

Yet, Hanson admitted, "Train Ride to Hollywood is so brisk, gentle, lively, and weird that it’s hard to hate the movie, even though many sequences are painfully stupid.

'"[7] Rod Lott, writing on the Web site Flick Attack in 2011, was far more negative, focusing on racial stereotypes involving the all-black band.

When Martin Luther King Jr. said he had a dream, certainly he meant the opposite of this, which casts the guys as train conductors only a step or two above the demeaning level of Stepin Fetchit."

Marsh called Train Ride to Hollywood a "witty" movie, adding that he thought it was underrated, and he also praised the soundtrack album: "Bloodstone performed material as diverse as 'As Time Goes By' and 'Toot Toot Tootsie' along with 'Sh-Boom' and 'Yakety Yak,' and made it all fit in with the modern originals.

"[10] Commenting further in an entry on Bloodstone for Vladimir Bogdanov's 2003 book, The All Music Guide to Soul, Marsh wrote, "Train Ride to Hollywood is arguably the funniest picture of the whole '70s blaxploitation boom, derived in equal parts from the Marx Brothers and such early spoofs as The Palm Beach Story and International House.

"[11] Also, writing in the Los Angeles Times after its initial release, film critic Kevin Thomas said of the movie, "It's joyous, exuberant, infectious .