Franklin Pangborn Movies
American actor Franklin Pangborn spent most of his theatrical days playing straight dramatic roles, but Hollywood saw things differently. From his debut film Exit Smiling (1926) to his final appearance in The Story of Mankind (1957), Pangborn was relegated to almost nothing but comedy roles. With his prissy voice and floor-walker demeanor, Pangborn was the perfect desk clerk, hotel manager, dressmaker, society secretary, or all-around busybody in well over 100 films. Except for a few supporting appearances in features and a series of Mack Sennett short subjects in the early 1930s, most of Pangborn's pre-1936 appearances were in bits or minor roles, but a brief turn as a snotty society scavenger-hunt scorekeeper in My Man Godfrey (1936) cemented his reputation as a surefire laugh-getter. The actor was a particular favorite of W.C. Fields, who saw to it that Pangborn was prominently cast in Fields' The Bank Dick (1940) (as hapless bank examiner J. Pinkerton Snoopington) and Never Give a Sucker An Even Break (1941). Occasionally, Pangborn longed for more dramatic roles, so to satisfy himself artistically he'd play non-comic parts for Edward Everett Horton's Los Angeles-based Majestic Theatre; Pangborn's appearance in Preston Sturges' Hail the Conquering Hero (1942) likewise permitted him a few straight, serious moments. When jobs became scarce in films for highly specialized character actors in the 1950s, Pangborn thrived on television, guesting on a number of comedy shows, including an appearance as a giggling serial-killer in a "Red Skelton Show" comedy sketch. One year before his death, Pangborn eased quietly into TV-trivia books by appearing as guest star (and guest announcer) on Jack Paar's very first "Tonight Show." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1936
Doughnuts and Society is the first of several attempts by Republic Pictures to create a new screen team comparable to MGM's Marie Dressler and Polly Moran. In this one, Louise Fazenda and Maude Eburne are paired up as Kate Flannagan and Belle Dugan, joint owners of a greasy-spoon diner. Unexpectedly striking it rich, Belle buys her way into high society, followed in short order by Kate, who has likewise increased her bank account with a revolutionary new invention. The humor lies in the contrasting behavior of the "400" and the rambunctious heroines, who spend most of their time trying to one-up each other. The romantic subplot concerns Kate's son Jerry (Eddie Nugent) and Belle's daughter Joan (Ann Rutherford), both of whom are extremely relieved when their mothers go broke and return to normal. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Louise Fazenda, Maude Eburne, (more)
- 1936
Deanna Durbin, the teenaged soprano who literally saved Universal Pictures from bankruptcy, made her feature-film debut in Three Smart Girls. Durbin, Nan Grey and Barbara Read play three wealthy young sisters, living with their divorced mother (Nella Walker) in Europe. The girls learn that their father (Charles Winninger) has made plans to remarry. Correctly sensing that the bride-to-be (Binnie Barnes) is a fortune hunter, the sisters head to Manhattan to save Daddy from himself. Durbin is the primary architect in reuniting her parents, but not before satisfying her fans with several arias. Three Smart Girls not only spawned a sequel (Three Smart Girls Grow Up), but even a 2-reel Three Stooges parody titled Three Dumb Clucks! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Deanna Durbin, Binnie Barnes, (more)
One of the landmark "screwball" comedies of the 1930s, My Man Godfrey offers the radiant Carole Lombard in her definitive performance as flighty young heiress Irene Bullock, who on a society scavenger hunt stumbles on Godfrey (William Powell), an erudite hobo residing in the city dump. Godfrey becomes the family's butler, much to the dismay of Irene's father Alexander (Eugene Pallette), who thinks his household is crazy enough without another apparent lunatic under his roof. Halfway through the film, we discover that Godfrey isn't a penniless bum at all, but the scion of a wealthy Boston family. Having been burned by an unhappy romance, Godfrey dropped out of life, taking up residence in the dump. Here his faith in humanity was restored by his fellow indigents, who managed to survive and remain optimistic despite the worst deprivations. Meanwhile, however, he wants to straighten out the Bullock family, who he feels are a basically decent bunch beneath all their pretensions and eccentricities -- and along the way, of course, Irene determines that Godfrey will be her husband. While Godfrey's ultimate "solution" to the exigencies of the Depression seems more of a placebo, My Man Godfrey is all in all a totally satisfying jolt of 1930s-style wish fulfillment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Powell, Carole Lombard, (more)
- 1936
Charismatic Polish opera singer Jan Kiepura made his Hollywood debut in Give Us This Night. His thick Slavic accent notwithstanding, Kiepura is cast as Italian fisherman Antonio. In the habit of singing as he fishes, Antonio catches the attention of opera diva Maria (played by real-life operatic soprano Gladys Swarthout, in her second film appearance). Our hero ends up replacing Maria's burned-out leading man Forcellini (Alan Mowbray), leading to a series of duets and, naturally, romance. It was the same formula that MGM would later deploy for their Mario Lanza pictures of the 1950s, except that Lanza was a more persuasive screen presence than Kiepura. The highlight of Give Us This Night is the climactic operatic adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, composed by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gladys Swarthout, Philip Merivale, (more)
- 1936
In this drama, an honest gambler tries to go straight. Although the gambling house he runs is illegal, the man insists that all house games be on the up-and-up. Trouble ensues when his wife demands he shut down the house to protect the good name of their newborn baby. He gives in and sells the house. Unfortunately he is soon conned out of his cash by an investment swindler. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ann Sothern, Bruce Cabot, (more)
When a car crash ends the life of a fabulously wealthy patron of the arts, the decedent's $20,000,000 fortune is inherited by one Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) of Mandrake Falls, Vermont. Already a reasonably successful local businessman, Deeds doesn't really feel the need for anything extra in his life: he just wants enough time to practice his tuba and compose greeting-card doggerel. When Deeds is convinced to move to New York, hard-boiled newspaper reporter Babe Bennett (Jean Arthur) is dispatched to get the inside scoop on "The Cinderella Man." Babe's stories of Deeds' eccentricities and no-nonsense dealings with phonies and poseurs provide excellent headline fodder; but she begins to regret her actions, having fallen in love with the big lug. Deeds ultimately sets up a foundation to dispense his fortune to the country's neediest souls, on the proviso that the recipients do their best to get back on their feet, a turn of events that leads his lawyer John Cedar (Douglas Dumbrille) to try to have him declared insane. By the end of the sanity hearing, the judge (H. B. Walker) declares: "Not only are you sane, but you're the sanest man who ever walked in this courtroom!" A joyously unadulterated hunk of Frank Capra-corn, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town was adapted by Robert Riskin from Clarence Buddington Kelland's short story "Opera Hat." In addition to the pleasure of watching the country bumpkin outwit city slickers, the movie is a film buff's dream, boasting one of the best character-actor casts ever assembled for a single film. Nominated for four Academy Awards, the film won Frank Capra his second Oscar (out of three) as Best Director. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, (more)
- 1936
Warner Baxter and Myrna Loy star as a husband and wife who've been married ten years...but they might not make it to eleven. The husband is a businessman who has rebuilt his fortune after the 1929 crash. The wife has stood by her man through thick and thin, rich and poor. Now it's 1935, and the husband has changed due to success; he's grasping, selfish and increasingly neglectful. The wife plans to divorce him and marry their best friend Ian Hunter, but the friend, despite his own affection for the woman, engineers the couple's reunion. Based on a nostalgic novel by Richard Sherman, To Mary--with Love is another choice example of the multiple-flashback technique being utilized long before it was "discovered" for Citizen Kane. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warner Baxter, Myrna Loy, (more)
- 1935
Steamship captain Steve Andrews (Ralph Bellamy) is demoted to second officer when Marge Walker (Ann Sothern), daughter of Steve's boss, insists that her boyfriend Roy Dale (John Buckler) be put in charge of the ship. Dale's first assignment is to deliver a valuable cargo to Shanghai within a designated date. Marge stows away on board to be nearer to Dale, which earns her the unbridled scorn of the embittered Steve. During a violent storm at sea, Dale panics and leaves his post, obliging Steve to take over command of the ship. As a result, it is Steve who guides the vessel safely to Shanghai -- and instead of being brought up on charges of mutiny, he wins the love of Marge at fade-out time. Here as elsewhere, Ralph Bellamy and Ann Sothern work so well together that one might assume they were married in real life (which they weren't). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ann Sothern, Ralph Bellamy, (more)
This typically lightning-paced Mascot Studios production stars Heather Angel as the title character, a thrill-seeking socialite named Myrna Van Buren. During a raid on a gambling joint, Myrna witnesses the murder of gambler Johnny Corinti (Theodore Von Eltz). Hoping to get an exclusive story, hotshot reporter Bob Grayson (Roger Pryor) kidnaps Myrna, only to recall a bit too late that she's the daughter of his boss! Bob then dedicates himself to keeping the girl out of the headlines, which proves almost as difficult as protecting her from the murderer. Curiously, though Robert Gleckler is prominently cast as Grayson's city editor, Gleckler's name does not appear in the cast list; however, former Keystone Kop Ford Sterling does receive billing in his last important screen assignment before a leg amputation forced him to retire from films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Heather Angel, Roger Pryor, (more)
- 1935
Two rich and wealthy millionaires who have a lot of money bet that reporter Robert Pryor can't spend $720,000 in twelve hours. If you're asking "Why $720,000?", the answer is: because this Republic programmer is titled $1000 a Minute . Anyway, a couple of cops spot Pryor flashing a roll of bills, and deduce that he's the bank robber they're looking for. For the rest of the film, Pryor must race around to spend his money, while remaining two steps ahead of the Law. The supporting actors in $1000 a Minute are delightfully cast to type, from Edgar Kennedy as a detective to Sterling Holloway as a helpful cabbie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roger Pryor, Leila Hyams, (more)
- 1935
When he's shipped off to prison on a tax-evasion charge, millionaire Van Dyke (Walter Connolly) breathes a sigh of relief: at least he'll be free of his dizzy, spendthrift wife (Billie Burke) and spoiled-rotten daughter Carol (Joan Bennett). Once behind bars, Van Dyke strikes up a friendship with amiable reformed bootlegger Ricardi (George Raft). Since Ricardi is to be sprung first, Van Dyke suggests that the ex-crook take on the task of "taming" the incorrigible Carol. Unwilling to be stifled by a former jailbird (even a good-looking one), Carol decides to get even by persuading one of Ricardi's former cohorts, a shady character named Tex (Lloyd Nolan) to stage a fake kidnapping. Trouble is, Tex kidnaps the girl for real, obliging Ricardi to race to her rescue -- but only after deliberately breaking every traffic law known to man, so that he'll be pursued by a veritable battalion of motorcycle cops (this hilarious finale was later re-used in the 1941 Buster Keaton two-reeler So You Won't Squawk). A heady blend of screwball comedy and crime melodrama, She Couldn't Take It is one of the fastest and funniest films of 1935. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Raft, Joan Bennett, (more)
- 1934
Considered by many to be the best of the many Bert Wheeler-Robert Woolsey vehicles of the 1930s, Cockeyed Cavaliers is set in Merrie Olde England, where the comic-opera ambience is immediately established when a Walter Winchellesque town crier (Franklin Pangborn) sings the local gossip. Bert and Bob play a pair of wandering indigents who are constantly in trouble because of Bert's chronic kleptomania. "My doctor tells me it's a sickness," he explains." Bob: "Well, why don't you take something for it?" Bert: "I've already taken everything." Bert's latest bit of unintentional larceny earns the boys a few hours in the local pillory, where the villagers pelt them with vegetables until they are rescued by a feisty young boy. Unbeknownst to our heroes, the "boy" is beautiful young Mary Ann (Dorothy Lee), who has disguised herself to escape an arranged marriage with the gross and gouty Duke of Weskit (Robert Grieg). Stopping over at a local inn, Bert, Bob and the in-drag Marian make the acquaintance of a lusty Baron (Noah Beery), who celebrates his recent hunting trip in song. Forced to make a quick getaway when the local constable shows up, Bert and Bob "borrow" the clothes of a pair of drunken royal physicians (Snub Pollard and Jack Norton) and escape in the doctors' coach, with Mary Ann still in tow. Following the instructions found in the coach, the boys stop over at the home of the Duke of Weskit, obliging Mary Ann to remain in disguise. Bert and Bob ingratiate themselves with the Duke by curing his stomach ache (using a horse-doctor book!), while Bob tries to make time with Weskit's gorgeous niece Lady Genevieve (Thelma Todd) -- never dreaming that "Genny" is the wife of the irascible Baron whom they previously met at the inn. All sorts of double-entendre nonsense ensues before Bert and Bob save themselves from the Baron's jealous wrath by capturing an elusive wild boar, a contingency that also permits Bert to wed Mary Ann, whose true identity has finally been revealed. Elaborately produced on leftover sets from RKO Radio's The Little Minister, Cockeyed Cavaliers is a gem of a comedy, filled to overflowing with clever dialogue and hilarious sight gags. Musical highlights include the novelty song "I Went Hunting (And the Big Bad Wolf is Dead)" and the delightful "Dilly Dally." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, (more)
- 1934
This well-mounted Majestic Pictures effort was inspired by Collusion, a novel by Theodore D. Irwin. Edward Arnold is in his element as Frank Rodie, an honest lawyer who turns dishonest to pay off his wife's stock-market losses. Still desperate for money, Rodie offers to serve as a co-respondent in a divorce case. His far-from-grateful wife (Helen Jerome Eddy) uses this as an excuse to divorce him and desert him for her paramour. Rodie spends the rest of the picture proving that his wife was a fool for deceiving and underestimating him. The "blonde" of the title is played by Dorothy Revier, actually one of the more sympathetic characters in the film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helen Jerome Eddy, Edward Arnold, (more)
- 1934
Department-store owner Horatio Allen's (George Barbier) biggest mistake is to name his scatterbrained daughter Gracie (Gracie Allen) as his sole heir. Suddenly Gracie becomes obsessed with the notion of converting her dad's store into a bird sanctuary. Psychologist Dr. Otto von Strudel (Egon Brecher) suggests that the best way to dissuade Gracie is to marry her off to Burns (George Burns). Burns vetoes the idea until Allen Sr. offers to pay him 10 dollars for every mile he travels with Gracie away from the store. This leads to a series of zany "on the road" complications, with Gracie's foolishness causing no end of trouble for the long-suffering George. Much ado about nothing, Many Happy Returns is recommended for Burns and Allen's staunchest admirers, though music fans will enjoy Larry Adler's harmonica solo and the dulcet sounds of Guy Lombardo's Orchestra (incidentally, some of Lombardo's numbers are actually performed sans screen credit by the Duke Ellington band). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Guy Lombardo, Gracie Allen, (more)
- 1934
The first of two film version of Fannie Hurst's novel, 1934's Imitation of Life chronicles the friendship between two women--one white (Claudette Colbert), one black (Louise Beavers). Colbert is a widow with a baby daughter who hires Beavers, who also has a daughter, as a housekeeper. Colbert is a working girl who yearns to operate her own business, which she does thanks to Beavers' special pancake recipe. A family friend (Ned Sparks) suggests that the ladies form a corporation to merchandise the "Aunt Delilah" pancake mix, and within ten years both women are quite wealthy. Colbert's relationship with her teenaged daughter (Rochelle Hudson) is strained when both ladies vie for the attentions of the same man, but these problems are minor compared to the travails of Beavers, who not only must deal with the De Facto segregation of the 1930s but must also contend with her restless daughter (Fredi Washington), who resents being an African-American and attempts to pass for white. The heartbroken Beavers dies, and at her funeral her now-chastened daughter weeps out her apologies for turning her back on her mother. Imitation of Life was remade in 1959, its story glamorized and updated to accommodate star Lana Turner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claudette Colbert, Warren William, (more)
- 1934
Produced by small-scale Mascot Pictures, this behind-the-scenes look at a now forgotten annual Hollywood event, the WAMPAS Baby Star selection, starred former MGM light leading man William Haines in his penultimate film role. Well cast as Bob Preston, the brash publicity director of Superba Pictures, Haines will stop at nothing to make his girlfriend, WAMPAS Baby Star June Dale (Judith Allen) a movie queen, never mind if the result should strain their relationship. Finagling a contract with Superba's Samuel Goldwyn-like president (Joseph Cawthorn), Preston nevertheless nearly loses June to a Pasadena playboy (John Miljan), winning her back only by staging a fake suicide attempt. While Bob pursues June, the other 12 WAMPAS babies get to join vaudeville comedians Shaw and Lee in a rousing production number to J. Keirn Brennan and Ted Snyder's "Hush Your Fuss" and generally strut their stuff. Inaugurated in 1922, the yearly selection by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers (WAMPAS) produced such future stars as Colleen Moore (1922), Clara Bow (1923), Joan Crawford (1926), and Ginger Rogers (1932), but by 1934 studio interference and competing pageants had made the event nearly obsolete. Instead of the yearly coming-out party, Hollywood studios were asked to feature the year's crop in their productions but only Paramount (with Kiss and Make Up) and Mascot obliged. In the end, only ten of the 1934 winners actually appeared in Young and Beautiful, albeit billed above the title: Judith Arlen, Betty Bryson, Jean Carmen, Dorothy Drake, Jean Gale, Hazel Hayes, Ann Hovey, Lucille Lund, Lu Anne Meredith, and Katherine Williams. One had to be left out to make room for the film's non-WAMPAS leading lady, Judith Allen, and the other two were apparently busy elsewhere. Helen Cohan, the daughter of George M. Cohan, Gigi Parrish, and Jacqueline Wells (aka Julie Bishop) were the no-shows and two of them were replaced with alternates Naomi Judge and Lenore Keefe. With the possible exception of Miss Wells/Bishop, none of the girls lasted more than a year or two and the yearly WAMPAS selection went the way of the Model-T. Aside from this now obscure yearly pageant, the best reasons to view Young and Beautiful today are William Haines' engaging performance and an enticing peek behind the gates at Mascot Pictures, the former Mack Sennett studios and future home of Republic Pictures. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Haines, Judith Allen, (more)
Poverty Row studio Monogram took a stab at musical production with King Kelly of the U.S.A., a cinematic blunder starring opera baritone Guy Robertson, who plays James "King" Kelly, a theatrical entrepreneur sailing to Europe with his latest show, "Kelly's Affairs of 1934." En route, he falls in love with Catherine (Irene Ware), who, unbeknownst to Kelly, is really Princess Tania of Belgardia. Posing as an efficiency expert, Kelly takes the Belgardian government by storm by saving the local mop industry from being ruined by the new invention of vacuum cleaners. The princess, meanwhile, is forced into an engagement to the elderly Prince Alexis, to whose country Belgardia is indebted. Does Kelly find a way out of this unfortunate predicament? Of course he does. Robertson and company perform "Right Next Door to Love," "There's a Love Song in the Air," and "Believe Me," all by Joe Sanders and Bernard Grossman. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Guy Robertson, Irene Ware, (more)
Based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich, Manhattan Love Song charts the misadventures of the madcap Stewart sisters, Jerry (Dixie Lee) and Carol (Helen Flint). Suddenly finding themselves broke, the girls are forced to become the servants of their former chauffeur Williams (Robert Armstrong) and maid Annette (Nydia Westman). This seemingly untenable situation ends happily when Jerry falls in love with Williams. Because of this Monogram production, Fox's movie version of Kathleen Norris' novel Manhattan Love Song had to be retitled Change of Heart. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Armstrong, Dixie Lee, (more)
- 1934
Six writers were involved in the RKO Radio musical comedy Strictly Dynamite; ironically, the plot concerns a radio comedian who's running out of material. Jimmy Durante stars as Maxie Slaight, an airwaves mirthmaker who hires young Nick Montgomery (Norman Foster) as his new gag man. Before he knows what's happening, Maxie becomes enmeshed in a romantic triangle involving Nick, Nick's wife Sylvia (Marian Nixon), and Maxie's radio co-star Vera (Lupe Velez). The film's five songs are performed con brio by Durante, Velez, and the four Mills Brothers. Adapted from an unproduced play by the usually reliable Ralph Spence, Strictly Dynamite wasn't sufficiently successful to boost Jimmy Durante's flagging movie career, and within a year or so he'd be back on Broadway in Jumbo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jimmy Durante, Lupe Velez, (more)
- 1934
Frank Craven, the actor-playwright best known for his performance as The Stage Manager in the original Broadway production of Our Town, was star, screenwriter and director of Columbia's That's Gratitude. The avuncular Craven plays fly-by-night stage producer Bob Grant, who inadvertently saves the life of small-towner Thomas Maxwell (Arthur Byron). The grateful Maxwell invites Grant to move in with his family, which he does, rapidly wearing out his welcome. Finally booted out of the Maxwell household, Grant takes Tom's homely but sweet-voiced daughter Dora (Mary Carlisle) with him, giving her a cosmetic makeover and turning her into a big star -- and thereby repaying his host's kindness in a most roundabout fashion. Director Craven should have told actor Craven to stop overacting, while actor Craven should have demanded better lines from writer Craven. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Craven, Mary Carlisle, (more)
- 1934
Paramount Pictures' annual college musical of 1934 is a pip, as they used to say. Jack Oakie plays Finnegan, a conceited gridiron hero whose prowess on the football field is exceeded only by his appreciation of the ladies. But his strutting manner and accompanying overbearing ego have alienated his one-time best friend Larry Stacey (Lanny Ross), a serious, more scholarly type who deeply resents the adulation heaped on Finnegan. Things go wrong for Finnegan after he graduates, as he pins his hopes on a job offer from a business firm that folds soon after. He finally shows up at Stacey's department store, where Larry -- the owner's son -- has taken over as general manager; and Larry, finally having the advantage over Finnegan, seeks to humiliate him in the course of helping him out with a menial job. But as it turns out, Larry is no sterling success either -- he's turned his father's once-thriving department store into a haven catering only to the very rich, of whom there were precious few in the midst of the Great Depression; Larry is also such a self-involved prig in his own way, wallowing in self-pity where Finnegan wallows in self-adulation, that he scarcely notices that his own secretary (Helen Mack) is almost dying in her unrequited love for him. In order to save his business, Larry's father, J. P. Stacey (eorge Barbier), turns to Finnegan, the football hero who used to sell 60,000 tickets a week on the playing field -- Finnegan understands ballyhoo, and what the public wants, and is put in charge of the store, and also becomes captain of a football team fielded by the store. Soon the place is jumping, especially when Finnegan brings back his old college team waterboy Joe (Joe Penner) and his duck mascot Goo-Goo, and fetching blonde cheerleader/singer Mimi (Lyda Roberti). Larry is reduced to running a department in the store and finally decides its time to step up and take on Finnegan head-to-head, joining the store's football team. But there's treachery and dirty tricks afoot -- in between a bright score by Mack Gordon and Harry Revel -- when Stacey's takes on a team fielded by their arch-rival store, Whimple's, in a bitter grudge-match fueled by the two owners' mutual dislike for each other. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joe Penner, Lanny Ross, (more)
- 1933
Hollywood responded to the exigencies of the Depression with such glorious nonsense as International House. The plot is motivated by a revolutionary television device called the Radioscope, which its Chinese inventor (Edmund Breese) is offering to the highest bidder. All interested parties are obliged to converge at International House, an ultra-modern hotel in the bustling Chinese community of Wu Hu. Among those parties is American envoy Stu Erwin, Russian general Bela Lugosi (a hilarious, pratfalling performance), the general's ex-wife Peggy Hopkins Joyce (a much-married showgirl of the era, who like Zsa Zsa Gabor was famous for being famous), and that celebrated aviator Professor Quail, better known as W.C. Fields. The lunacy begins even before Fields arrives, thanks to the antics of the hotel's doctor George Burns and nurse Gracie Allen. When Erwin comes down with the measles (he is always struck down by a childhood disease whenever he's about to marry his fiancee Sari Maritza), the hotel is quarantined. The guests make the most of their enforced stay by watching the many variety acts broadcast over the radioscope device: Rudy Vallee, singing a love song to his megaphone; Baby Rose Marie (the same), belying her 11 years by belting forth a hotcha jazz number; radio humorists Stoopnagle and Budd, showing off their own goofy inventions; and Cab Calloway, singing a paean to marijuana titled "Reefer Man" (only in recent years has this peppy number been seen with any regularity on television). There's also an elaborate production number on the dance floor of the hotel, featuring Sterling Holloway and a bevy of beauties dressed as cups and saucers. Once Fields drops in via his art-deco autogyro, the film is firmly in his pudgy hands. Erwin outbids the others for the radioscope, while Fields escapes in his aircraft with Peggy Hopkins Joyce in tow (she keeps insisting that she's sitting on something, whereupon Fields replies "I lost mine in the stock market"). A truly unique filmgoing experience, International House is a must-see for any aficionado of 1930s musical comedies. PS: The film's now-famous "outtake," showing Fields calmly advising the cast and crew not to panic while the set is rocked by a California earthquake, was actually staged several days after the genuine quake. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peggy Hopkins Joyce, W.C. Fields, (more)
The top-billed stars in the extravagant RKO musical Flying Down to Rio are Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond. Forget all that: this is the movie that first teamed Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. We're supposed to care about the romantic triangle between aviator/bandleader Raymond, Brazilian heiress Del Rio and her wealthy fiance Raul Roulien, but the moment Fred and Ginger dance to a minute's worth of "The Carioca", the film is theirs forever. Other musical highlights include Rogers' opening piece "Music Makes Me" and tenor Roulien's lush rendition of "Orchids in the Moonlight". Then there's the title number. The plot has it that Del Rio' uncle has been prohibited from having a floor show at his lavish hotel because of a Rio city ordinance. Astaire and Raymond save the day by staging the climactic "Flying Down to Rio" number thousands of feet in the air, with hundreds of chorus girls shimmying and swaying while strapped to the wings of a fleet of airplanes. It is one of the most outrageously brilliant numbers in movie musical history, and one that never fails to incite a big round of applause from the audience--even audiences of the 1990s. Together with King Kong, Flying Down to Rio saved the fledgling RKO Radio studios from bankruptcy in 1933. The film was a smash everywhere it played, encouraging the studio to concoct future teamings of those two stalwart supporting players Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dolores Del Rio, Gene Raymond, (more)
