Hollywood Party (1934)

"Hollywood Party" is one of those films that has no plot and a few famous faces thrown in. The film is a right shambles and pretty boring. That is except for the cameo made by Laurel and Hardy. They make "Hollywood Party" worth it, thanks to a few marvellous sketches. They play a couple of lion sellers who turn up at the party in question to collect their money from the owner of the house. Once Laurel and Hardy leave the film, it is time to stop watching.

Watching this film reminded me of the story of Buster Keaton's descent as an actor/director/producer. His stock company was dissolved in the late 20s and he eventually went in "all softened up" with drink and signed a contract with MGM, who promised him the moon. He managed to make one great picture with them, "The Cameraman" before succumbing to MGM's comedy "machine." They surrounded him with "funny" producers, directors and production workers who ignored Buster's natural comedic genius. He became depressed, due to drink, personal problems and MGM's incompetence with comedy, to make one sad picture after another through the 30s and 40s, and even appeared drunk on film. MGM almost ruined his career, if it wasn't for a resurgence having to do with television and film in the 50s and 60s.Before launching into my critique and utter confusion as to what the rest of the commentators found funny in Hollywood Party, I'd like to make an observation about comedies in general. They are very, very hard to make. That is why there are so very few memorable comedies. Many of them fall flat and are soon forgotten. In my opinion, there are less than 5 funny films that are truly funny per decade.With that in mind, MGM's "comedy touch" is on full display with Hollywood Party. That is, they have none. Their comedy by committee, led by LB Mayer, falls incredibly flat here. That no director actually took credit for this excessive, putrid mess signals the genesis of the "Alan Smithee" idea.It seems this film attempted to make a star out of Jimmy Durante by solely featuring him and his antics. He is very annoying. His Schnarzan one-joke character falls flat and like in the picture, the public (and the audience) quickly tires of his fake lions and what follows. Schnarzan, MGM's self-promoting spoof on its Tarzan series, turns out to be nothing but a dream...a sure sign of the producer throwing up his hands and copping out.This Lollapalooza film with no comic material wastes talent like Laurel and Hardy and Ted Healy and The Three Stooges, although the L&H sequence with the ill-fated Lupe Velez was outstanding in comparison. Many have made light of an all-star cast but most of the cast was actually anonymous. A clip of Greta Garbo was thrown in to add star power...Marie Dressler and Joan Crawford were mentioned, but didn't appear in the film. The rest of the "stars" included Jack Pearl, Polly Moran, Charles Butterworth, Arthur Treacher and Robert Young. The color Walt Disney short, The Choc-late Soldiers is well done but incredibly weird and sick. It has to do with a bunch of soldiers made out of chocolate going to war. In keeping with Disney's bizarre obsession with death and mayhem, many of them come back at the end of the short in a parade, many with broken off limbs.I love comedies and especially films from the 30s. But this was an overblown stinker and it shows MGM's complete lack of a comedic touch.

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.

This really is a movie with a story you just couldn't care less about.The movie had some good potential, with a couple of at that time well known actors appearing at a Hollywood party. Sounds like enough material to make a fun and good movie with. The movie however isn't that much fun as you would expect. It's totally uninteresting to follow, with a bunch of characters and different love stories you just don't care about. The movie gets still fun and is somewhat saved toward the ending of the movie when Mickey Mouse and Laurel & Hardy appear in the movie (yeah a weird combination I known).The movie also features some horrible and typical signing and dancing routines that don't seem to end and at times go on for over 5 minutes. You know, songs that always sound the same and are about cheerful things, with lines that don't even sound musically. Thank goodness for the fast forward button.It's a real waste of some good potential and some good actors. Obviously Laurel & Hardy are underused, also because at the beginning of the movie they are falsely presented as two of the main characters. Jimmy Durante is a good and fun actor but it just isn't enough to spice things up in the movie. Guess that the highlight of the movie really is the animated chocolate soldiers sequence, presented by Mickey Mouse himself, who also gives a pretty good Jimmy Durante imitation.The move could had been so much more fun to watch but it still definitely has some moments in it that makes this movie a still perfectly watchable one.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/