Hips, Hips, Hooray!

This one doesn't showcase W&W at their best (see "Diplomaniacs" or "Half Shot at Sunrise" for that). The verbal badinage is generally lame, and the sight gags and slapstick are mainly of the "seen 'em before" variety. This is rather unfortunate, since the flick definitely has a dynamite premise. The boys are street hucksters promoting flavored lipstick, but thanks to ever-vivacious Dorothy Lee, manage to link up with a high-class, publicity-seeking cosmetics emporium.

Despite the middling comedy antics, this is a must-see for pre-code aficionados. The opening number, a live radio studio broadcast featuring naked models in bathtubs (their naughty bits discreetly obscured by hair-do's and foreground objects) is pretty eye-popping, as are the minimal outfits sported by the hot-to-trot sales crew in a risqué scene wherein the boys test the product "in vivo". Thelma Todd and famed songstress Ruth Etting are on hand, and the tunes are catchy enough. If you liked "Roman Scandals" and "Murder at the Vanities", by all means check it out.

Ditsy Daisy Maxwell (Dorothy Lee) is warned to sell more lipsticks. She spends her time in her nightie demonstrating lipstick inside the store's window display. It's a hit only for the men. It doesn't help that hustlers, Andy Williams (Bert Wheeler) and Dr. Robert Dudley (Robert Woolsey), are across the street pulling all the attention. Andy falls for Daisy and Daisy falls for the boys' lies. She tells beauty supply owner Miss Frisby (Thelma Todd) who then hires the boys to promote a new flavored lipstick.

This opens with a Ruth Etting song. It is pre-Code by a few months. The girls have some revealing costumes and there are some suggestive humor. Wheeler and Woolsey have faded from cinematic memory. They are a matter of personal taste. They have an old vaudevillian flair which can wear thin quickly. I do find it mildly humorous in a knowing way. This is comedy in an archaeological sense of the word.

Not a great movie, and not one that I'd recommend to anyone new to pre-Code films, because it's pretty silly and there are many better titles to choose from. It grew on me, though it took over 24 minutes (one third of the film) because it starts off so slowly. Be forewarned there are a lot of corny jokes mixed in to the slapstick humor of Wheeler and Woolsey.

Where the film picked up for me was when the number "Keep On Doin' What You're Doin'" is performed. Dorothy Lee is vivacious and has a sweet voice, and when Woolsey starts dancing around like a ballerina with a lampshade around his waist, it starts off a pretty cute and wild sequence between the four principals (Thelma Todd is the other) that's well choreographed by Hermes Pan. Later when the song is reprised in the park, it's amusing when Woolsey confuses a squirrel going up his leg with Todd's hands, continuing to see the title lyrics. There's quite a bit of skin on display, most notably a lineup of lipstick sellers wearing backless outfits with a couple of straps over the chest, short shorts, and fishnet stockings. The boys have to figure out what flavor the lipstick is by kissing them, you see. One of the women is Marion Byron, who you might recognize from the Buster Keaton film Steamboat Bill, Jr.

In addition to the pre-Code salaciousness, there are actually a few pretty decent special effects as well, including a nice scene with stop motion photography at the pool hall, and later a car hopping over another during the auto race. Taken altogether it's an odd mix (reminding me of a combination of George Burns, Benny Hill, and The Great Race), but if you can forget the silly plot and excuse the occasional groaner from Wheeler and/or Woolsey, there's enough here to keep it interesting as the film progresses.

Traveling hucksters Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey sell Dr. Dudley's Flavored Lipsticks from the back of their truck. Thelma Todd and Dorothy Lee also sell lipstick, with the rather more respectable firm of Maiden America Beauty Products.

Through what may be called a misunderstanding, the two businesses merge. A bag of lipstick samples is accidentally switched with a banker's bag of treasury bonds. A couple of detectives set out after Wheeler and Woolsey, who flee and eventually find themselves driving a fast car in a cross country auto race. It never really make sense but the wild climactic car chase is fun.

Wheeler and Woolsey are their usual comic selves - Wheeler more mild-mannered and romantic, Woolsey the cigar smoking blowhard. Their frequent costar Dorothy Lee is fine as the girl who finds goofy Wheeler irresistible. Thelma Todd mostly plays it straight as manager of the lipstick firm - unfortunately her role offers little opportunity for Thelma to show her comic skills.

Fast moving and very silly but the hectic pace does not always equal hilarity.

Another little gem from the mad 30s boys of RKO as this frenetically paced oddity takes us from flavoured lipsticks to a mad Keystone-like car race in the space of just over an hour. Alongside cigar-chomping Woolsey and irritating little Wheeler we have Dorothy Lee (as per usual) and Thelma Todd playing the cutie romantic interest parts, and a short song right at the beginning from third-billed Ruth Etting (in a rather fetching hat).

Best sequences in this one - "Just Keep On Doin' What You're Doin'", really funny - the whole car race sequence, and the bevy of cuties with flavoured lipsticks ("we've got to guess what flavour" - oh, sure ...). I bet the set cleaners at RKO were knee-deep in bananas by the end of the shoot though :)