In the lyrics of one of their myriad show tunes, Richard Rogers put these words by Lorenz Hart poking fun at two prominent "golddiggers" of the 1920s - 1930s;
"Peggy Joyce has a hobby.
All her husbands have gold.
Lilyan Tashman won't go out with the ash man...."
Both Joyce and Tashman were Broadway personalities, Joyce a pretty face in choruses (in the Ziegfeld Follies, for example) and Tashman in actually important acting parts. Joyce made several silent films, and this talkie (her only talkie). Tashman was in several talkies, but died prematurely - she actually had it in her to make a good career in film.
If you look at Peggy Hopkins Joyce's biographic thread on this web site you will see the five wealthy men she married and divorced in her career. The lady had one great asset - her body. In the age of ballyhoo of the 1920s and even in the early days of Depression people were really impressed by her, and she was even listed once among the most admired women in the world (with Amelia Earhart and Madame Curie, who actually did things). But her heyday faded as she entered middle age, and younger ladies took over her audience. By the time she died in the 1950s, she was a has-been.
The real stars of this film are the following: W.C.Fields, Burns and Allan, Franklin Pangborn, Bela Lugosi, Cab Callaway, Rudy Vallee, and the then "Baby" Rose Marie. The last three do musical numbers of interest (Callaway's being about a musician who is high on reefers, of all things!). The real humor is done by Fields, Burns and Allan, and Pangborn, including an immortal moment when the fey Franklin is momentarily unsettling to Fields who thinks Pangborn is trying to signal that he is interested in him. There is also some assists from Stu Erwin, but although a better performer than some of the reviewers here think he is not in the same class as "Uncle Claude", George and Gracie, and Franklin. As for the comics and entertainers outside of Callaway, Vallee, and Rose Marie, Stulpnagel and Budd is a real let-down. The pair had a crazily popular radio show at the time, but it has faded from memory (as did their idiot contemporary Joe Penner).
Fields' Professor Henry R. Quail is trying to reach Kansas City in his auto-gyro THE SPIRIT OF SOUTH BROOKLYN, but gets lost and ends in Wu-Hu China, at the famous International House hotel (run by Pangborn, where the resident doctor and nurse are Burns and Alice). A Chinese inventor has designed a prototype of television, and various bidders from around the world are at the hotel (Lugosi as General Petronovich is apparently trying to get the rights for himself, and then sell it to the highest bidder; Lumsdale Hare represents Britain; Erwin is from the U.S.). Joyce has gone there because she is looking for another rich husband, first glancing at Erwin, then trying to avoid jealous, ex-husband Lugosi, and then ending up with Fields. The musical acts are mostly shown on the television. Fields is unimpressed by the invention - he fires a gun at the screen at one point when the U.S. fleet is shown, and one of the battleships sinks.
This is one of those films (there were plenty of them among Depression comedies) where the plot line was so weak that barely anything funny is connected to it. The best plot line running joke is how the Chinese inventor is looking forward to catching the six day bicycle race in New York, and while it is mildly amusing it is really dull. But Burns and Allan do several of their classic routines, one of which is even funnier when Pangborn joins them, and breaks character by taking turns with George Burns in trying to handle Gracie Allan's twisted, marvelous ill-logic. Fields is more straightforward with Gracie. After hearing her comments for a few moments, he turns to another party and asks about the death penalty in China.
Lugosi is really something else. A capable actor - even (in the right hands) a strong and vibrant one - he never played comedy well. His funniest line of dialog in film is in the 1934 BLACK CAT, when he overly pronounces the word "baloney" in all seriousness. Yet here and in NINOTCHKA he appeared in popular comedies. Both times his humor is basically reaction humor. Bad tempered and jealous here, and a serious commissar in NINOTCHKA, his reaction to the antics of others becomes funny (going insane watching Fields and Joyce supposedly having a tryst across the street, and being unable to open the window of his room to get out and climb into their room - his highpoint here). He also has a nice moment having lost his nice rooms at International House by a trick that backfired, and being stuck in a dive of a hotel across the street. So he is a plus here among the humorists.
The film is not great Fields, but it is popular Fields. I give it an 8 for the better humorists in the film, despite being stuck with Stulpnagel and Budd and Ms Joyce.
"Peggy Joyce has a hobby.
All her husbands have gold.
Lilyan Tashman won't go out with the ash man...."
Both Joyce and Tashman were Broadway personalities, Joyce a pretty face in choruses (in the Ziegfeld Follies, for example) and Tashman in actually important acting parts. Joyce made several silent films, and this talkie (her only talkie). Tashman was in several talkies, but died prematurely - she actually had it in her to make a good career in film.
If you look at Peggy Hopkins Joyce's biographic thread on this web site you will see the five wealthy men she married and divorced in her career. The lady had one great asset - her body. In the age of ballyhoo of the 1920s and even in the early days of Depression people were really impressed by her, and she was even listed once among the most admired women in the world (with Amelia Earhart and Madame Curie, who actually did things). But her heyday faded as she entered middle age, and younger ladies took over her audience. By the time she died in the 1950s, she was a has-been.
The real stars of this film are the following: W.C.Fields, Burns and Allan, Franklin Pangborn, Bela Lugosi, Cab Callaway, Rudy Vallee, and the then "Baby" Rose Marie. The last three do musical numbers of interest (Callaway's being about a musician who is high on reefers, of all things!). The real humor is done by Fields, Burns and Allan, and Pangborn, including an immortal moment when the fey Franklin is momentarily unsettling to Fields who thinks Pangborn is trying to signal that he is interested in him. There is also some assists from Stu Erwin, but although a better performer than some of the reviewers here think he is not in the same class as "Uncle Claude", George and Gracie, and Franklin. As for the comics and entertainers outside of Callaway, Vallee, and Rose Marie, Stulpnagel and Budd is a real let-down. The pair had a crazily popular radio show at the time, but it has faded from memory (as did their idiot contemporary Joe Penner).
Fields' Professor Henry R. Quail is trying to reach Kansas City in his auto-gyro THE SPIRIT OF SOUTH BROOKLYN, but gets lost and ends in Wu-Hu China, at the famous International House hotel (run by Pangborn, where the resident doctor and nurse are Burns and Alice). A Chinese inventor has designed a prototype of television, and various bidders from around the world are at the hotel (Lugosi as General Petronovich is apparently trying to get the rights for himself, and then sell it to the highest bidder; Lumsdale Hare represents Britain; Erwin is from the U.S.). Joyce has gone there because she is looking for another rich husband, first glancing at Erwin, then trying to avoid jealous, ex-husband Lugosi, and then ending up with Fields. The musical acts are mostly shown on the television. Fields is unimpressed by the invention - he fires a gun at the screen at one point when the U.S. fleet is shown, and one of the battleships sinks.
This is one of those films (there were plenty of them among Depression comedies) where the plot line was so weak that barely anything funny is connected to it. The best plot line running joke is how the Chinese inventor is looking forward to catching the six day bicycle race in New York, and while it is mildly amusing it is really dull. But Burns and Allan do several of their classic routines, one of which is even funnier when Pangborn joins them, and breaks character by taking turns with George Burns in trying to handle Gracie Allan's twisted, marvelous ill-logic. Fields is more straightforward with Gracie. After hearing her comments for a few moments, he turns to another party and asks about the death penalty in China.
Lugosi is really something else. A capable actor - even (in the right hands) a strong and vibrant one - he never played comedy well. His funniest line of dialog in film is in the 1934 BLACK CAT, when he overly pronounces the word "baloney" in all seriousness. Yet here and in NINOTCHKA he appeared in popular comedies. Both times his humor is basically reaction humor. Bad tempered and jealous here, and a serious commissar in NINOTCHKA, his reaction to the antics of others becomes funny (going insane watching Fields and Joyce supposedly having a tryst across the street, and being unable to open the window of his room to get out and climb into their room - his highpoint here). He also has a nice moment having lost his nice rooms at International House by a trick that backfired, and being stuck in a dive of a hotel across the street. So he is a plus here among the humorists.
The film is not great Fields, but it is popular Fields. I give it an 8 for the better humorists in the film, despite being stuck with Stulpnagel and Budd and Ms Joyce.