David Gould Movies
- 1934
The musical picture that ended Lou Brock's career as an RKO Radio producer, Down to Their Last Yacht is almost festive in its awfulness. The nonsensical plot finds a group of impoverished socialites (including Sidney Blackmer and Marjorie Gateson) trying to raise money by renting out their yacht, offering themselves as crew members. When a nouveau riche family charters the yacht, everyone is marooned on the tropical island of Malakomokalu. Here blonde jungle queen Mary Boland rules the roost, demanding that the shipwrecked men make love to her and the island's hootchy-kootchy native girls, or suffer the consequence of being fed to the sharks. Once regarded as the worst film ever made by RKO, this legendary flop is actually a lot of fun in a "high camp" sort of way, with the love scene between Mary Boland and Sterling Holloway a particular highlight. Two future co-stars of Laurel & Hardy's Babes in Toyland, Felix Knight and Marie Wilson (her film debut), have small roles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mary Boland, Polly Moran, (more)
- 1934
With notable exceptions of Diplomaniacs and Cockeyed Cavaliers, Hips Hips Hooray must rank as the best of RKO-Radio's Bert Wheeler & Robert Woolsey vehicles. Bert and Bob are cast Andy Williams (sic) and Doc Dudley, sidewalk peddlers specializing in flavored lipstick. Falling in love with fashion model Daisy Maxell (Dorothy Lee), Andy offers to teach his and Doc's surefire sales techniques to Daisy's boss Amelia Frisby (Thelma Todd), owner of Maiden America Cosmetics. This requires our two heroes to pose as Big Businessmen, which they do by "borrowing" the office of investment executive Mr. Clark (Spencer Charters). When Clark returns from a wild-goose chase concocted by Doc Dudley, Andy and Doc beat a hasty retreat, inadvertently grabbing a bagful of Clark's money and leaving their sample case behind. Accused of thievery, the boys escape to Kansas but redeem themselves when they accidentally enter a cross-country auto race and drive Maiden America's car to victory. Hips Hips Hooray is a delightfully risque and boundlessly inventive effort, highlighted by two of the finest songs ever to come out of a Wheeler-Woolsey epic: Kalmar and Ruby's "Keep Romance Alive" (sung by Ruth Etting) and "Keep on Doin' What You're Doin' (originally written for Zeppo Marx in 1933's Duck Soup!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, (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)
- 1932
Melody Cruise, director Mark Sandrich's first feature film, is an unofficial extension of Sandrich's Oscar-winning RKO short subject So This is Harris (1933). Once again, the director's star is bandleader Phil Harris, then in his wavy-haired romantic lead period. Harris plays a millionaire who, while on a steamship cruise, is the object of the attentions (mercenary and otherwise) of every woman who crosses his path. Charlie Ruggles plays the flustered fellow whose job it is to steer Harris clear of breach-of-promise suits, while Helen Mack is the one girl who isn't interested in either Harris' looks or his millions-which naturally entices him to pursue her. Most of the dialogue is spoken rhythmically, a device that might have been tiresome in lesser hands. Let loose in RKO's optical effects department, Mark Sandrich offers us an endless variety of creative lap-dissolves, "wipes " split screens and flat cuts. The whole enterprise begins to run out of gas when it is necessary to tie up loose plot ends, but otherwise Melody Cruise plays with the same freshness and nuance that it did back in 1933. Watch for Betty Grable as one of the shipboard girls, and for perennial Three Stooges foil Bud Jamison as an operatic train conductor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charlie Ruggles, Phil Harris, (more)
