Does anyone know what this means?
At multiple points they talk about finding gold, going back to New York rich, and throwing $50 bills at the "round haircuts". Obviously this is very specific slang that must have meant something to the audience of the 1940's.
As someone who saw "Road to Utopia" in its original release in the 40s, I can tell you that the term "round haircuts" was probably as much of a mystery to audiences then as it is to you now. Having said that, however, there was (maybe still is) the notion that poor people who could not afford to patronize a barber shop would put a bowl upside down on their head and have a family member simply cut along the edge, resulting in a haircut like the one Moe of the Three Stooges sported. The conventional wisdom was that you could tell poor people by their "round haircuts."
So that's what I always felt the line meant.
You're probably right. Although the movie is supposed to take place around the turn-of-the century, so I wonder if the term might go back to that era ?
shareThe haircut you describe is known as the bowl cut, and yes, does look like Moe Howard's 'do.
It's interesting to think (bear with me) that Hollywood figures would not know this, if this is what they were referring to (bearing also in mind, only boys had this haircut, so not sure why they would be recipients of the money), while persons who had the haircut (I recall the style, but the bowl wasn't used on my head. My brother says he remembers having a bowl on his head. Our mother did do hair professionally at one time as well) knew it by the more appropriate bowl cut name.
In rewatching Holiday Inn, I can't help but listen to bits from Astaire (a dancer) and Crosby (a singer) and how they toss out truly some of the most silly comparisons and inane references I have ever heard, and I can't help but think they are trying to sound hip and attempting slang of some sorts. It may have been what was said then, but it sounds absolutely absurd now.
Now Crosby and Hope (probably more Hope than anybody, Crosby probably just managed to either keep with Hope or Hope carried Crosby along, I think) were better at it, more amusing, but current topics of the day is one thing (something I think will severely plague a show like the Simpsons in years to come) but maybe that was the round haircut intention, to just throw it out there and see if anyone gets it.
Essentially this still goes on in slang. And in the end, the intention makes no sense, or 'we were just talking nonsense'.
Thanks for posting your interesting comments on the use of contemporary slang and other references in some of the "Road" and other films of the era, which will probably be a complete mystery to current and future viewers of the films. In "Utopia", for example, Crosby tells Hope to "go peddle your rack shellac." Now, I wonder how many people are still around who know that this is a reference to Hope's long-time radio sponsor, Pepsodent tooth paste!
This may go back to the notion prevalent at the time, that most movies had a "shelf life" of a few months. Not too many people could envision them still being seen by large numbers decades later. So who cared if someone in 2012 "got it"?
Well, this of course would then be an extension to the idea that tv shows and sitcoms from the 50s and 60s would not be remembered half a century later unless you had a former movie star like Lucille Ball in your show.
Hence why a daytime soap even like Dark Shadows, would so easily have actors leave then return as different characters with no explanation, and no, not just the time-traveling usage. Roger Davis and Kathryn Leigh Scott would both appear as different characters with no explanation as to why they looked like someone who had just previously disappeared while in the same time frame.
Also, Bewitched has become very apparent in not knowing what a rerun is, as plots with Aunt Clara were redone with Esmerelda. Againa, no one thought Bewitched would be watched 40 or 50 years later.
As well as the Stooges didn't know they were rediscovered on tv.
We can only imagine how movie actors from the 40s or so thought. Road to Utopia didn't even get nominated for Best Picture. Who would be viewing it 70 years on?
Possibly it was a way of saying "peasants".