This is How Movies Should Be Made

The greatest movie ever!

Just so...so bad

Don't Believe the Hype

. . . and a Dang Concert broke out. Though H0LLYWOOD HOTEL offers a few cheap thrills (such as when Rosemary Lane sings "I feel wet and it's no wonder I do" to Dick Powell, who warbles back "That's how I get when I'm out with you," Warner Bros. uses most of the songs here to warn America of the Racist and Fascist Fifth Columnists then closing in upon Tinseltown to spearhead their assault against the U.S. Constitution. The most famous song here, "Hooray for Hollywood," lampoons one-time Warner stock company goofball Marion Mitchell Morrison (aka, "John Lassie Wayne") for having less brains than his horse (in recognition that the self-styled "Il Duce" soon would be leading a vicious Real Life Pogrom that would make Hitler proud, resulting in untold murders of Jews such as John Garfield and Ethel Rosenberg, along with Union Champions including Errol Flynn). Speaking of Adolph, another HOTEL song disparages one-time pioneering aviator Chuck L. from Detroit with the verse "he's like Lindbergh on the ground," in reference to the "Dingo-ate-my-Baby" guy's shocking defection to Hitler's inner circle (which was nearly as scandalous as U.S. Czar Red Commie KGB Strongman Vlad "Mad Dog" Putin appointing his best American buddy Rex "Exxon Valdez" Tillerson as Amerika's Secretary of State this month). The same lyric finds Ms. Lane despairing "I'm like Ginger Rogers running the Brooklyn Dodgers," reflecting the always Cassandra-like Warner's chagrin that the Dodgers were going to drag their spikes 10 more years before integrating Major League Baseball. (Warner does what they can to provoke a Civil Rights movement with H0LLYWOOD HOTEL, by lampooning rival MGM's upcoming Jim Crow Propaganda Piece GONE WITH THE WIND , and by putting the first integrated music group in Cinema History on screen--beating the tardy Dodgers by a decade!)

With Black History Month starting tomorrow, I feel a need to point out that this vintage movie of the '30s has a couple of interesting contrasts concerning race relations at the time. When Hugh Hubert does a blackface scene in a filming segment taking place in the 19th century South, this was something that was considered humorously accepted by much of the American public though it would cause an uproar today. But the rare sight of African-American musicians Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton performing alongside Caucasions Gene Krupa and Benny Goodman on film (this was supposedly the first instance of this happening) is something that would be taken for granted today. For me personally, I tolerated the former and very much loved the latter especially the xylophone sequence. The story, about the Dick Powell character trying to get a break in movies, is quite satirical and very funny with many exaggerations of the way things were then. My main interest in seeing this was because of Ted Healy who once was the boss of who are now known as The Three Stooges. He can be overbearing but I laughed just the same. Also of interest, the future President of the United States-Ronald Reagan-as an announcer which was his initial foray in show business. Plenty of wonderful songs abound like the classic "Hooray for Hollywood" though I was surprised to hear the name "Donald Duck" retained in the lyrics as this was a Warner Bros. picture and Donald's a Disney character! So on that note, I highly recommend Hollywood Hotel.

This is really a lemon of a musical from Warner Bros. with DICK POWELL as a boy singer who wins a contest that sends the naive guy to Hollywood where he ends up escorting a movie star imposter (ROSEMARY LANE) to a Hollywood premiere. Seems Rosemary is impersonating a temperamental diva (LOLA LANE), who overacts in awful style the role of a spoiled movie star who refuses to attend the premiere of her latest musical.None of the songs are the least bit memorable but occasionally director Busby Berkeley gets to improvise and put some of his touches on the camera-work and choreography of assorted group numbers. Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra with Gene Krupa on the drums and a visible Harry James as a member of the band, gets to have a couple of big band segments, and Frances Langford gets to do a brief song with Dick Powell. Raymond Paige and his orchestra do a nice job on a Russian number with chorus and orchestra. These are the film's only highlights.Comedy relief is supplied by Hugh Herbert, Ted Healy, Edgar Kennedy, Allyn Joslyn, Curt Bois, Glenda Farrel and Grant Mitchell, weak as it is. You can catch a glimpse of Ronald Reagan as the MC at the premiere of a new film, Carole Landis as a hatcheck girl in the background of a scene with Hugh Herbert, and Louella Parsons plays herself as a columnist who thinks she's getting the scoop on things. It's a good thing she didn't give up her day job.On the plus side, ROSEMARY LANE is lovely and has a nice singing voice, DICK POWELL does a passable job on some innocuous songs, and GLENDA FARREL has a winning way with some sharp wisecracks. ALAN MOBRAY is painfully bad as an overbearing actor that Powell is hired to sing for, and just about all of the comedy efforts are handicapped by a bad script.LOLA LANE overdoes the diva bit to an almost irritating degree at the start of the film and it all goes downhill from there.Good camera-work, some nice B&W photography of plush interiors, and a few nice touches by Busby Berkeley can't compensate for a cliché-ridden story of boy meets girl in Hollywood, set to some "moon and June" songs that can hardly be called inspired.Summing up: Disappointing musical.

"Hollywood Hotel" is a fast-moving, exuberant, wonderfully entertaining musical comedy from Warners which is sadly overlooked. It should be remembered if only for providing the official theme song of Tinseltown -- "Hooray for Hollywood." The score by Richard Whiting and Johnny Mercer has a number of other gems, however, including the charming "I'm Like a Fish Out of Water," and "Silhouetted in the Moonlight." The best musical number is "Let That Be a Lesson to You," in which Dick Powell and company detail the misadventures of people who found themselves "behind the eight-ball," a fate which literally befalls slow-burning Edgar Kennedy at the number's end. The picture celebrates Hollywood glamour and punctures it all at once, as it gets a lot of comic mileage out of pompous and ego-maniacal actors and duplicitous studio executives. The cast includes a gaggle of great character comedians--Allyn Joslyn as a crafty press agent, Ted Healy as Dick Powell's would-be manager, Fritz Feld as an excitable restaurant patron, Glenda Farrell as Mona Marshall's sarcastic Gal Friday, Edgar Kennedy as a put-upon drive-in manager, Mabel Todd as Mona's goofy sister, and Hugh Herbert as her even goofier dad. The "racist" element mentioned in another review here is a ten-second bit where Herbert appears in black-face during a pseudo-"Gone With the Wind" sequence. It's in questionable taste, but it shouldn't prevent you from seeing the other delights in this film, notably the Benny Goodman Quartet (including Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton!) in what I believe is the only footage available on this incredible jazz combo. The "Dark Eyes" sequence goes on a bit too long and comes in too late, but otherwise "Hollywood Hotel" is a gem, well worth your time and certainly a film which should be considered for DVD release.