Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Perfect cast and a good story

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Winnie Lightner was a unique performer who was a terrific find for Warners when she stole "Gold Diggers of Broadway"(1929). Her high spirited performances as well as a genuine love of entertaining had her bursting through the dullness of "The Show of Shows". Not long after when musicals were on their way out Winnie was almost their first casualty, unfortunately just at the time when Warners felt she had earned the right to carry a big musical comedy. This was "The Life of the Party" and it was going to be spectacular - Technicolor production, romantic leads from Broadway (Jack Whiting, Irene Delroy), strong comic support (Charles Butterworth), grand tunes and even a fashion show!! But as studios started to get public feedback, Warners got jittery and ended up slashing all the songs except one. So what was left was an extremely funny gold- digger farce where performers occasionally pause to break into song but nothing happens!! Projecting a 100 watt personality Winnie proved she didn't need songs and it was one of Warners few successes in that dismal year of 1930!!A super opening as the camera flashes along the great white way giving viewers a glimpse of bright lights and the best and most popular of Warners films of 1930!! And the pace doesn't slacken as the camera pans to the music store with Flo and Dot ("the gold dust twins") strutting their stuff. Behind a bevy of sheet music plugging Warners/First National recent song hits Winnie Lightner (as Flo) sings the only song in the film, the bouncy "Poison Ivy" but it's her constant stream of wisecracks that will keep you in stitches. Dot (Irene Delroy) is the pretty one and it's the discovery that the handsome boy who she has kept faithful to has married an old dowager for her money, that send both her and Flo down the gold digging path. The first millionaire the gals fleece (out of a $5,000 wardrobe) is fashion retailer Mons. Le Maire and Charles Judels is hilarious as the hyper-active Frenchman with his funny dances and temper tantrums, all the while screaming "I Will Not Lose My Temper"!!Now in Havana and with Dot posing as a wealthy widow, Flo is in charge and boy is there a mix up!! Between Smiths - A.J. Smith, the wealthy inventor of Rush invigorating elixir, Flo mistakes him for con-man (a natty John Davidson) and she spends the rest of the movie trying to separate Dot from the man of her dreams, the real A.J. Smith (Jack Whiting) who is hanging around like a love sick puppy and who..... Charles Butterworth adds his comic revelry as a "not quite there" hotel guest who has a passion for Winnie and horses!!With no songs to sing Jack Whiting seemed superfluous, at least Delroy got to look fetching in some fashionable clothes but often the scene found them gazing at the moon, then cutting as soon as they opened their mouths to sing!! But according to a Photoplay review, only Winnie, Charles Butterworth and Charles Judell were needed as the laughs poured out of them and they did!!Highly Recommended.

Often-witty dialogue can't quite save a predictable, simplistic plot, but Winnie Lightner and Irene Delroy keep the film quite entertaining. The film as a whole is totally inconsequential, but several of the performances, especially those of the two leads, are enough to recommend it. Lightner's forceful, abrasive, energetic, and often hilarious performance is a perfect foil for Delroy's sweet, dewy, and relatively languid one. Charles Butterworth's underplayed humor is very welcome in a minor role, while the unfunny slapstick subplot anchored by Charles Judels' almost grotesque performance as Monsieur LeMaire throws the film off pitch whenever it resurfaces throughout. Overall, simple, predictable, and worth a watch.

... because she really steals the show in one of those early talkies that is not the least bit claustrophobic - there is plenty of movement, large sets, etc. This is a precode in which nothing really happens but plenty is implied, and it's fascinating to watch just from the film history angle plus it's a real hoot. The opening frame is Broadway as it appeared in 1930, and Jack Warner just has to plug everything Warner Brothers is doing in those first few frames. The neon signs advertise movies you've probably never heard of such as "Fifty Million Frenchmen", "The Song of the Flame", and "Courage". All three were made by Warner Brothers in 1930 and two of the three are as lost as the Technicolor version of this film. Next we meet song pluggers Flo (Winnie Lightner) and Dot (Irene Delroy). They are selling sheet music just a short time before the mass production of records would make their profession obsolete. Dot gets fired because she is too good looking - men are stopping to flirt not buy sheet music. Flo quits because they are a package deal.Flo wants Dot to cash in on her good looks, but Dot loves Bob, a struggling clerk on Wall Street. Everything changes when Flo finds an item in the newspaper about Bob, age 23, marrying a wealthy widow aged 55. From this point forward Dot is willing to do things Flo's way and go for the gold in a man, right down to the fillings in his teeth. The two get a job in a high fashion shop owned by a guy who has a thing for Dot, take him for half the store in expensive dresses, and head off to Havana to look for a rich guy for Dot. Now it's never explained why they have to leave the country to look for a rich guy, nor how they got the money to get to Havana in the first place, but that's beside the point.The rest of the film is a mad cap comedy of errors in which Flo mistakes a fellow fortune hunter for a recently rich inventor of a new soft drink, Dot has her moneyed mission somewhat derailed by her attraction to a good looking fellow who is staying at the same Havana hotel, and Charles Butterworth keeps showing up at inopportune times to interject some one-liners. Oh, and the guy who owned the fashion shop who Flo and Dot took for a ride in New York? He shows up at an inopportune time too.Winnie Lightner is loud and busy - kind of like a flapper version of Glenda Farrell with a good singing voice, and that was her downfall. I think she could have transitioned easily to Warner's later fast-talking comedies, but she was too associated with the early musicals that became very unpopular by 1931 and also with the roaring 20's pre-Depression era to continue to go over big. Recommended for those who enjoy watching Warner Brothers and early talking pictures go through their growing pains and for those who like being transported back to a simpler time, when a woman with some meat on her bones was considered attractive and when a man would dress up in a tuxedo just based on the possibility that he might get lucky.

This great comedy was planned as a musical but the musical numbers were cut out before general release due to the fact that the public had grown tired by late 1930. Only one song was left in the picture. Winnie Lightner is at her best in this All Talking All Technicolor Comedy! Winnie Lightner and her friend (played by Irene Delroy) decide to do some gold digging when they are fired from their job in a sheet music store. They find a dressmaker named Le Maire (played by Charles Judels) to work on and once they got the goods they take off for Havana! Meanwhile the dressmaker is happy thinking he is going to spend the night with the girls along with his friend. He goes wild in a hilarious scene where he starts breaking all the furniture while his friend only says "Yoo-Hoo" and makes him even more irritated! Some of the funny gags in this comedy include a scence where the dressmaker is showing the girls some dresses and says "And this one the prince wanted to wear but his mother would not let him!" This comedy was originally made in Technicolor. The last known print was throwed away by Technicolor Corporation in the 1950's after a black and white print has been made to show on television. But even in black and white this film is a riot! :) Towards the end of the film LeMaire catches up with the two golddiggers and literally destroyed a room shouted "I Will Call The Police If I Don't Get The Money For The Dresses" After he gets a check he says: "And I'm gald I didn't lose my temper!" One of the best early Warner Brother talking comedies.