Monday, May 30, 2016

The Cohens and Kellys in Hollywood (John Francis Dillon, 1932)

The only reason I saw this flick in MOMA's Universal Pictures: Restorations and Rediscoveries, 1928–1937 series is this description from the site: "This one throws in a satire of the movie business, as young Kitty Kelly (June Clyde) becomes a star at Continental Productions, and young Melville Cohen (Norman Foster) writes songs for musicals. Crisis arrives when audiences grow tired of all singing, all dancing—an experience Junior Laemmle knew firsthand." Well, that doesn't happen until well into the 75-minute running time. Dillon (who?) never shows young Cohen working on a musical. But you do receive an acknowledgment that theme songs were crusty by 1932. And apart from a scene in which Boris Karloff, Lew Ayres, Tom Mix, Gloria Stuart, etc. are hobnobbing at the Coconut Grove (I think...I was getting sleepy by that point), that's all worth noting about this wincingly unfunny ethnic comedy. Most painful was an interminable scene in which a Russian director rants while perfecting his art on the set. Ugh.

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