What Price Hollywood?

Pre-Code insider's look at Hollywood, a precursor to all those STAR IS BORN films.

Constance Bennett is a waitress at Hollywood's famed Brown Derby restaurant specifically for the chance of meeting the right contact to help her break into films. In walks Lowell Sherman, a tipsy but famous director. They take a shine to each other and he wakes up the next morning to find her asleep on his living room couch. He invites her to test for a small part in a film, but she's terrible.

She works all night on her little scene and finally gets it right. Of course she makes a hit and becomes a big star. She's never romantically involved with Sherman, who's more interested in the bottle. She has everything she ever wanted and marries a stuffy rich boy (Neil Hamilton) who never fits in.

Eventually Bennett loses the husband and also loses Sherman as his career slips away because of his drinking. The years go by. One night she gets a call to come get Sherman out of jail where he's been locked up for be drunk and for skipping out on a bar bill. She takes him home and cleans him up, but it's too late.

Hard-hitting story stunned a lot of viewers who wanted to believe that the lives of the Hollywood stars was a bed of roses. Bennett and Sherman are superb. Hamilton is fine as the rich husband. Also good are Gregory Ratoff as the producer and Louise Beavers as the devoted maid.

There were insider Hollywood stories before this. Marion Davies' comedy SHOW PEOPLE showed how fame can go to an actress' head. The following STAR IS BORN films borrowed heavily from this one but the heroines in these (Janet Gaynor, Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, and the 2018 version) were all married to the tragic figure.

Perhaps a bigger studio than RKO could have secured the Oscar nominations Lowell Sherman and Constance Bennett deserved for this film.

It's fun to compare "What Price Hollywood," made in 1932, to the more familiar 1937 version of "A Star is Born" (as well as its two later remakes). An important historic event intervened between the two: the Hays Code became rigidly enforced in 1934. The 1932 version is much spicier. Mary, the unknown knockout in in the 1932 version, is a saucy waitress at the legendary Brown Derby restaurant trying to catch the eye of a movie big shot. She's pretty sophisticated and, you believe, would happily do whatever is required to land an acting job. She readily allows herself to be picked up and taken to a premiere by a famous (but fading) director, which launches her great career. In the 1937 version, Esther, the ingenue, is straight off the farm and comes to Hollywood without a clue about the movie biz. She's a goody-two-shoes who would be shocked about what it usually takes to break into the biz. She catches the eye of a famous (but fading and highly alcoholic) actor when she waitresses at a party.

There is one major plot difference: in the 1932 version, Mary marries a rich polo playing socialite who divorces her (while she's pregnant) because he is fed up with movie people. This is highly realistic--movie stars had terrible marital problems. In the 1937 version, Esther marries the actor who was her mentor and is sucked into his hopeless downward spiral. Divorce is a perfectly acceptable solution to marital problems in 1932 but, under the constraints of the Code, was out of the question in 1937.

Both films are well worth seeing. They're loaded with insights about Hollywood and filmmaking (both the creative and the business end), the rapacious movie press, and the fans--an insatiable monster that devours the object of its affection. The declining fortunes of the director (in "What Price Hollywood") and the actor (in "A Star is Born") are quite fascinating. But of the two--the 1932 version is a lot more fun.

The direction of George Cukor for this film is excellent. The three lead characters have three charming, yet completely different personalities. The great talent of George Cukor doesn't allow the energy of any of his characters to wane. The performance of Lowell Sherman only adds to the wonderful script, and only the innocence of Constance Bennett is able to carry the role of an aspiring starlet that makes it so believable. Neil Hamilton (later to play the 'Commissioner' on the "Batman" TV series of the mid-1960's) is excellent as the 'love interest'. But it is Lowell Sherman who steals nearly every scene in the wonderful jewel of a film. The story of this film is like many real-life stories of almost everyone who has ever worked in Hollywood - either in front of the camera or behind the lens. To me, this IS the original "A Star is Born", and that is why it is one of my favorite films of all time. From the appearance of Eddie "Rochester" Anderson to the Brown Derby to the scenes of the night life of the early days of Hollywood, "What Price Hollywood?" will always be a memorable film for me.

One of George Cukor's earliest successes before his glory years at MGM was this classic What Price Hollywood. Done at RKO it's the story of three star crossed people and that's literal for one of them.

Constance Bennett plays Mary Evans who is discovered by drunken director Lowell Sherman while working as a waitress at the famous Brown Derby in Hollywood. In 1932 that was the place to be if one wanted to be discovered because all the Hollywood celebrities dined there at one time or another. Including those like Sherman who liked their cuisine strictly liquid and at that time illegal.

You might think that playing a movie star was no stretch for Connie Bennett. But she and her sisters Joan and Barbara were of a distinguished theatrical family with father Richard Bennett in Hollywood himself at that time. She was as far removed from Mary Evans in real life as you can get, still Bennett got deep inside the part.

Sherman might have modeled his character on any number of distinguished Hollywood lushes. He probably took bits from all of them, but his director is uniquely his own, at once self centered, talented, vain and frail.

The third part of this triangle is Neil Hamilton, polo playing scion of a prominent society family who is introduced to Bennett when he smacks her with a polo ball. It was definitely love at first sight, but love between them takes a rocky road.

Hollywood has never been easy on itself. The movie industry figures that the scandals they've had are all too public so honesty is probably the best policy. In the sound era What Price Hollywood is one of the first of a long line of critical examination of the movie industry that also includes The Big Knife, The Bad And The Beautiful, Callaway Went Thataway and Two Weeks In Another Town. And of course we can't forget A Star Is Born in its original and remakes.

What Price Hollywood got an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. As its done before the Code, it holds up well today as a mark of distinguished and mature film making.

One of George Cukor's better films, featuring Lowell Sherman, as an alcoholic director, Gregory Ratoff as a Sam Goldwyn like producer, and Constance Bennett playing the starstruck waitress at the Brown Derby. The film also includes Eddie "Rochester" Anderson as Sherman's sly butler. An early RKO film, it shows the working of the studio, somewhat satirically but lovingly. Also, a world premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theater. It should be better known .