Hollywood Party

That romantic & devilishly handsome movie star, Jimmy Durante, decides to throw the HOLLYWOOD PARTY every celebrity in town will want to attend. And he does, with somewhat mixed results.

This nonsense film (no directors are credited, but several important ones were involved) was an excuse for MGM to show off, somewhat ostentatiously, its comedy talent. Enough talent, indeed, to waste. Laurel & Hardy show up for a scene with Lupe Velez and it is hilarious. The ubiquitous Polly Moran, Charles Butterworth & Arthur Treacher are generally worth watching. Ted Healey & The 3 Stooges, Jack Pearl & Eddie Quillan are hampered by inadequate material. Even Robert Young appears for a few moments, playing himself and looking a wee bit silly.

Apparently having wandered over from another studio, Mickey Mouse shows up unexpectedly, in animated form & voiced by Walt Disney. He proves he can hold his own in trading wisecracks with Durante and then introduces a fairly good Disney Technicolor cartoon, `Hot Chocolate Soldiers' and it's enjoyable.

If you get invited to this party, try hanging out with Stan & Ollie, or The Mouse. They're where all the fun is.

Jimmy Durante spoofs Johnny Weismuller's Tarzan by playing a jungle film star who throws a lavish party for his Hollywood friends (complete with Zeigfeld style musical numbers). Lupe Velez (the real life Mrs. Weismuller) spoofs Maureen O'Sullivan's "Jane" character (controversial at the time for "Jane's" skimpy outfits). Durante is annoying but Velez shines with the best bit teaming her with Laurel & Hardy. The Three Stooges appear as autograph seekers. This MGM musical features an appearance by Mickey Mouse who spoofs Durante and introduces the Disney color cartoon "Hot Chocolate Soldiers." The 70 minute plot is a mess with the parts being better than the sum, however a must for fans and collector's of the aforementioned appearances.

Hollywood Party is a strange film to be coming out of that Tiffany of studios MGM. Louis B. Mayer's operation specialized in high gloss drama and sophisticated comedy. This product would have been more like something from RKO or Hal Roach. Paramount with its Big Broadcast series and International House was also far more likely to have made a film like Hollywood Party.

But make it they did and Hollywood Party has that same surreal quality of International House. With about eight directors and about six writers involved it would have been guaranteed to be surreal like. There's no real plot to it, Hollywood's number one heart throb, the body beautiful from those Schnarzan films throws a blowout and invites whom he can. The body beautiful, the one and only Schnarzan is of course Jimmy Durante.

You know a film like this is going to be lots of fun. When you get the great Durante, the Three Stooges, and Laurel&Hardy in one film, the great stone face of New Hampshire will chuckle.

My favorites in this are Stan and Ollie who are dealers in wholesale jungle animals and crash the party to collect their bill from Jack Pearl as Baron Munchausen. The two of them get involved with an angry Lupe Velez who's been cut off by the bartender and they get into a slapstick duel. Can you imagine the Mexican Spitfire with Stan Laurel, turn that one over in your minds.

Charles Butterworth and Polly Moran play a nouveau rich oil millionaire and George Givot plays a fake baron/gigolo trying to promote himself with Moran. Lupe is also Jane to Durante's Schnarzan which audiences today might not get the whole gist of that joke since she was married to Johnny Weissmuller then.

All in all it's great fun and at the very end you'll see why the film has the surreal quality it does. No plot, just a lot of good gags and many laughs. This is one you can't go wrong with.

What a hoot. Hilariously bad musical comedy that was butchered by MGM and dumped as a B film stars Jimmy Durante as a failing actor whose Schnarzan character needs a boost. So they decide to buy new lions (with teeth) to beef up his screen image. But his rival, Liondora, also wants the lions. So Durante throws a Hollywood party to lobby the lions' owner, Baron Munchausen, for a sale.

A great cast and some terrifically snappy production numbers and funny bits make this a total trip. Along with Durante we get Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy who got cheated out of the lions, Lupe Velez as Durante's spitfire Jane, Polly Moran and Charles Butterworth as Oklahoma oil millionaires, Arthur Treacher as a butler, Jack Pearl as the Baron, Ted Healy and the Three Stooges as autograph fiends, Eddie Quillan and June Clyde as the lovers, Frances Williams in the great "Hollywood Party" number, Shirley Ross, Harry Baris, and Robert Young as themselves, and a ton of small-part actors like Ferdinand Gottschalk, Nora Cecil, Clarence Wilson, Leonid Kinskey, Tom Kennedy, Gilbert Emery, Jed Prouty, Richard Carle, Edwin Maxwell, Ray Cooke, George Givot and Walt Disney as the voice of Mickey Mouse! "Hollywood Party" and "My One Big Moment" are great songs. Jimmy Durante is fun, Laurel and Hardy get a funny sketch with Lupe Velez and eggs, Polly Moran gets to sing, and then there's leggy and glittery Frances Williams and her great jazzy voice!

The hilarious Jimmy Durante, known for making fun of his own large schnozzola, sings his signature song in this film, "Inka Dinka Doo." Along the way some great songs by Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart (before Rogers teamed with Oscar Hammerstein II to create some of America's greatest musicals), including the title song performed by Frances Williams, "Reincarnation" performed by Durante, and "Hello" performed by Durante and Jack Pearly. --Musicals on the Silver Screen, American Library Association, 2013