This was the type of variety show which most of the studios made which was popular in the early days of sound. In this case, the film consists of various short sketches, including musical numbers, comedy bits, and even a dramatic scene. The stars include Maurice Chevalier, Clara Bow, Ruth Chatterton, Fredric March, Gary Cooper, George Bancroft, Jack Oakie, Skeets Gallagher, Buddy Rogers, Kay Francis, Jean Arthur, Mary Brian, Fay Wray, Evelyn Brent, Leon Errol, William Powell, Warner Oland, Clive Brook, Eugene Pallette, Lillian Roth, Stu Erwin, Helen Kane, Nancy Carroll, and Mitzi Green.
Paramount also enlisted a posse of directors, including Edmund Goulding, Dorothy Arzner, Ernst Lubitsch, Rowland V. Lee, Victor Scherzinger, and more. Several of the film's segments, including a few in early Technicolor, were missing from the copy that I watched. In fact, the segment featuring Cooper, Brian, Arthur and Wray only consisted of the intro. My favorite segments include the very silly detective bit with Clive Brook as Sherlock Holmes, Powell as Philo Vance, and Oland as Fu Manchu; Chevalier and Brent in a lover's quarrel; Ruth Chatterton as a sad French prostitute who sings a song to American G. I.s (including March) about to return home from WWI; and a comedy piece with Chevalier as a gendarme patrolling a park popular with lovers. Most of the song and dance numbers were largely forgettable, though. Still, it was nice to see for a different look at the various stars.
