Hollywood Hotel

Too bad the high-point comes so early. It's a rousing performance of that zippy tune "Hooray for Hollywood" with Benny Goodman's marching band comin' at ya. The remaining 100 minutes is best taken as a spoof on Hollywood's over-sized ego's and cut-throat film industry, which would work fine except too many of the scenes go on too long, way past the point of diminishing returns. Do we really need 12 minutes of Lola Lane acting the pampered, self-centered movie goddess. But then I gather she was dating the movie's producer, Hal Wallis. Then too, poor Dick Powell gets one of his sappier roles, all wide-eyed grin and much too foolish for even a spoof like this.

The best moments are Goodman's numbers which are nevertheless too few to compensate. They do, however, include a good look at vibraphonist Lional Hampton and premier drummer Gene Krupa, along with a quick peek at jazz trumpeter Harry James. On the other hand, the Raymond Paige version of "Dark Eyes" amounts to a textbook example of gaudy over-orchestration. Still, it gives legendary director Busby Berkeley a chance to swoop his camera around in trademark fashion. The drive-in musical bash is both well staged and unusual, with a few clever touches (the falsetto-voiced thug), but again goes on too long. And of course Berkeley does keep everybody in motion, so if some of the routines get wearisome, at least they never drag. But then he's got to work in a lot of second-rate comedy acts (Herbert, Todd), most of which may raise a chuckle but not much else.

No, in my book, it's a disappointing movie, both patchy and undistinguished, except for the knock-out title tune and a winsome Rosemary Lane. Then again, what other film of the day provided a role for movieland's queen of gossip, Louella Parsons, with a cheerless smile that never seems to fade. Somehow, that seems fitting.

Saxophonist Dick Powell wins talent contest and goes to Hollywood. There he gets mixed up in drama revolving around a movie star and her double, played by real-life sisters Lola and Rosemary Lane. Middling musical comedy from Busby Berkeley with a decent cast and backdrop. Dick Powell seems bored and I imagine he was after doing so many musicals prior to this. Nice to see two of the Lane sisters in the same movie. However, Lola is actually one of the worst parts of this. She plays a diva movie star in the most over the top manner possible. She plays to the rafters and it's just too much. The rest of the cast ranges in quality. Glenda Farrell is always good and a few years earlier she might have had the female lead. Sadly she was starting down the ladder by this time. Acquired comedic tastes Hugh Herbert and Ted Healy do their usual bits of business. If you're familiar with them, you'll know what I mean and whether or not you can stomach them. Speaking of Healy, this is one of his last films before his controversial death. Ronald Reagan has a bit part and gossip columnist Louella Parsons makes her acting debut. The songs are nice but only the opening "Hooray for Hollywood" number stands out. For a Berkeley musical, it's pretty restrained.

When we talk Hollywood Hotel we could be talking about one of three things, the actual hotel, the radio program, and this film which was partially inspired by the first two. Dick Powell was the host of the Hollywood Hotel program on CBS radio network in which Louella Parsons dished out the weekly scoop on the stars.

Powell and Parsons debuted the Hollywood Hotel program in 1934 so by 1937 it had its fair share of the radio audience. Powell hosted, sang, and kibitzed with Louella and her movie star guests. With the power she had with her column, she was able to get the various stars to go on and plug their latest films for nothing.

Then the American Federation of Radio Artists stepped in and demanded she pay wages accordingly and they won the case. That ended the Hollywood Hotel program in 1938. Of course both Powell and Louella went on to other radio venues. The whole story is covered in the Tony Thomas book, The Films Of Dick Powell.

But before the plug was pulled this film came out from Powell's home studio of Warner Brothers inspired by the radio program. Powell plays a singer/saxophonist with the Benny Goodman band who gets signed to a Hollywood contract. But when he gets out to Hollywood he gets himself tangled up with an egotistical film star Lola Lane, her lookalike double real life sister Rosemary Lane, and a ham actor in Alan Mowbray.

When Mowbray is called upon to sing in a Civil War epic he's making with Lola Lane, it's Powell's voice they use. Then Mowbray develops a Lina Lamont problem when he's asked to go on the Hollywood Hotel radio program, broadcast from the Hollywood Hotel. That's got the studio in a tizzy. Let's say the problem isn't solved the way it is Singing In The Rain, but Powell's manager Ted Healy proves to be resourceful.

Richard Whiting and Johnny Mercer provide a really nice score for the film. The big hit song comes right at the beginning as the Benny Goodman band with scat singing Johnnie Davis sing Hollywood's anthem, Hooray for Hollywood. My favorite however is Powell and Rosemary Lane singing, I'm Like A Fish Out Of Water. Just listening to Johnny Mercer's lyrics about Ginger Rogers running the Brooklyn Dodgers or Sally Rand without her fan, it's a compendium of American popular culture in the Thirties.

Busby Berkeley does the choreography here and while the film doesn't have the soaring imaginary stuff that his earlier work with Warner Brothers has, the numbers are well staged. Berkeley's big moment is in a drive-in eatery where Powell and Healy have been forced to take jobs. The number starts with Benny Goodman broadcasting from the Hollywood Hotel doing Let That Be A Lesson To You and then at the drive-in Powell, Lane and the entire place start joining in song to the exasperation of owner Edgar Kennedy. And you know what you can expect from Edgar Kennedy exasperation.

Benny Goodman gets to show why he was named the King Of Swing when the band with drummer Gene Krupa and xylophonist Lionel Hampton as part of his ensemble. That together with Frances Langford singing as well. And possibly the last surviving cast member of the group was a fellow who had a small bit as a radio announcer. He died in 2004, but not before he became the 40th President of the United States. Ronald Reagan always credited Dick Powell and Pat O'Brien as being the two guys on Warner Brothers who were the most helpful to an eager young player looking to make his mark.

Hollywood Hotel is one delightful and entertaining motion picture, dated, but charmingly so.

Directed by Busby Berkeley, the movie is about a saxophonist in Benny Goodman's band who wins a talent contest and gets a 10-week contract with a film studio. Lots of misunderstandings lead to the opportunity for Dick Powell and Rosemary Lane to put on a great show. The film is best remembered for the featured song "Hooray for Hollywood" by Johnny Mercer and Richard A. Whiting, sung by Johnnie Davis and Frances Langford, with Goodman and His Orchestra. Ironically, the satirical song became a standard part of Tinsel Town glamour and is still hauled out regularly for award shows and celebrations, even though Mercer's lyrics contain numerous references to the phoniness of the movie industry and film stardom. This is one of the best Warner Bros. musicals of the 1930s. --Musicals on the Silver Screen, American Library Association, 2013

It was a hell of a job to grab a video tape of that movie, still but seldom shown on TV in the States, but invisible in France since it was contradictorily issued, in the late forties. Well, the beginning with the Goodman band's motorcade is a landmark, saluted by many critics as the sweeping entrance of the Swing Era in motion pictures. Lead by Benny and Johnnie Davis, plus Frances Langford (still alive in Florida and just re-married at 80), the band gives a tremendous start to a picture which soon looses its impetus, occasionally rewinded by the hilarious appearances of Hugh Herbert plus the wits of Glenda Farrell or Ted Healy. As a little pest, Mabel Todd is not convincing. After two syrupy tunes, we get a good staged crowd number at the Callaghan's restaurant, with allusions to Columbus, before the real gem comes, from the Orchid Room: the second part of SING, SING, SING (Christopher Columbus), with Krupa, Goodman and James at their best, unfortunately for just three minutes (but they weigh ten times more than the 5'30" of the same standard, as re-created in BENNY GOODMAN STORY. It's the difference between genuine music and re-heated soup). But Berkeley gets our pardon by setting immediately after a brilliant number with Benny's Quartet (HOUSE HOP, not I'M A DING DONG DADDY FROM DUMAS, as stated in IMDB's credentials). That makes five GREAT minutes for the millions of jazz fans still in love with swing. A second quartet number, GET A HEARTFUL OF MUSIC, was deleted by the production. Then the movie keeps moving, with an astonishing performance of DARK EYES, by Raymond Paige and his "battalion" of musicians and singers - what critics would call "jazz symphonique" - before everybody gets together for the finale,with SING, SING, SING, YOU SON OF A GUN. The 6.7 mark is severe, because the beginning and the five minutes of pure swing are invaluable. I urge TIME WARNER to issue this movie in video, for people who lack my courage to hunt for copies. henry caraso