A Viagem do Barulho

"Mad Holiday" is a typical low budget 30s thriller, centering on Edmund Lowe as a vacationing movie idol, a shipboard killer and a diamond heist. But the real mystery is why Loew's co-star, Elissa Landi, never became a star in her own right. Rising above the grade B trappings as an incognito author, she's a revelation...sexy, stylish and bouyantly amusing with the sparkle of a Rosalind Russell or Katherine Hepburn. She also gave a stand-out performance in the second "Thin Man" caper, "After the Thin Man" (albeit in a less captivating role.) But by 1943, her screen career was over. She's not the only gifted performer who somehow got lost in the maze of the studio system. But watching her sail through this otherwise tepid crime story, one an only wonder how Hollywood let her get away.

Phil Trent (Ed Lowe) has been playing a super sleuth in films for years now, and wants to just get away for a while. he gets on a cruise ship to escape, but of course the crowds recognize him. his publisher pulls a stunt that makes him look foolish. in all the confusion, he meets the actual writer of the detective stories who just HAPPENS to be on the same cruise ship. Zasu Pitts is in here for comedic fun, and plays a drunk who hates drunkards. and the real bodies start piling up. and a diamond is missing. the usual shenanigans. mixups. twists that aren't so surprising. now we're off the ship and in a chinatown theater. and Trent is still hot on the trail of the diamond and the murderer. it's pretty good. low key fun. some slapstick comedy tossed in. Directed by George Seitz. died young at 56, but not much information available on him.

Philip Trent (Edmund Lowe) plays the popular film character, private detective Shelby James, as written by Peter Dean (Elissa Landi). He hates the character and the work. He quits the long-running series and goes on a cruise ship vacation. A mysterious blonde barges into his room and seemingly murders somebody. He stumbles upon the body just he claims to hate about the films.

I like the starting premise but I lose interest in the murder mystery. There are ways to heighten the intensity. The leads don't have enough chemistry until getting handcuffed together. Maybe they just needed some time alone. They need to get arrested sooner and the story should finish on board the ship. It's a lot of joking around. The murder mystery gets convoluted and confused. This has a bit of fun. I can do without the fake Chinese but that's the times. I would think that the idea was to make this a long-running amateur sleuth couple franchise. At last, this isn't one which lasted.

Here Edmund Lowe plays actor Philip Trent who is tired of playing the same detective in a series of B films. The problem is these B films make money! So the studio and the author of the detective books do not want Trent to leave. Trent decides to decompress on a cruise between LA and San Francisco, but his vacation turns out to be anything but refreshing. The writer turns up on the cruise to try and convince Trent to stay, and then there is an actual murder mystery on the ship that turns out to have lots of twists and turns in it.

Ultimately this film is somewhat like "The Thin Man" in that you have a reluctant detective (Lowe) and a woman spurring him on and getting involved in the mystery herself (Elissa Landi). This is actually a very good role for Landi, actually much more up her alley than some of the other films I've seen her in.

The film gets very busy with lots of minor character actors showing up, including the zany Zasu Pitts and the always on edge Edgar Kennedy. I might have given this film an 8/10, but Ted Healy absolutely ruins every scene he is in, he is just so obnoxious. He cut the Three Stooges loose in 1934, they went to Columbia, the rest is history. Healy stayed at MGM ,and the rest is just not funny. In this film he has some kind of pseudo stooge that looks like a genetic splicing of Moe and Larry. It is all very weird.

The end is just a big joke, but as (deliberately) corny and hammy as the individual parts were, it really fit well into a satisfying whole of a spoof. I'd recommend it.

This film is a spoof of ALL the mystery films of the 30's & 40's. An actor quits his job playing a "super sleuth", goes on a Vacation, and discovers a REAL murder!

Lowe & Landi are terrific together; there's quite a "chemistry" between them. It's a shame that they didn't make this combo into a series!

More laffs are provided by Edgar Kennedy (with his "slow burn"), Zazu Pitts, and Ted Healy. It's quite obvious that everyone enjoyed making this film! It's a real HOOT! (Especially funny how it spoofs its own "mystery" genre).

The only (slight) drawback to this film is that it's incredibly easy to figure out who the "masked murderer" is....but, you've GOTTA see this film!