The Life of Brian, and a few more movies

Holiday Inn (1942)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

Jim (Bing Crosby) and Ted (Fred Astaire) are a song-and-dance team, with the complication that Ted keeps stealing Jim's dames. Jim never gets angry about it, but he's tired of show business so he opens his own night club that only has shows on holidays — hence, Holiday Inn.

I'd somehow had the impression that this is a grand musical comedy, but it's really not. Ted's an ass, Jim's a sucker and sometimes an ass himself, and he must be rich, because his nightclub that's open only two weeks a year is huge.

#337  [archive]
SEPT. 24, 2024

You might hope that the songs by Irving Berlin could save this, but only a few of them — "Easter Parade" and the Oscar-winning "White Christmas" — are top-level. The rest seem like leftovers, maybe tunes that were cut from other, better musicals.

Astaire does a firecracker dance that's excellent, and his drunk dance is even better, but Ginger Rogers isn't here and she's sorely missed. The movie's plot is dim, and a couple of the big production numbers are sung in blackface.

You haven't truly cringed until you've seen Louise Beavers (Imitation of Life '34) playing a maid again, but this time singing a tribute to Lincoln on the 4th of July: "Who was it set the darkie free? Abraham!"

Verdict: MAYBE.

♦ ♦ ♦     

Hollow Image (1979)
Streaming free at YouTube

An upscale black woman, working as a buyer in the fashion industry, is dating a lawyer and living in a snazzy Manhattan condo. She's homesick, though, for the life and friends she left behind in Harlem. Should she be urban, or urbane?

Tedious, is what she'll be. The movie's intent seems to have been to show black people succeeding in life, being positive role models, etc. Which is admirable, but what comes across is only that, given a boring script, black people can be as boring as people of any other color.

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦      

Hollywood Boulevard (1976)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

Candy Wednesday comes to Hollywood, hoping for stardom and Oscars, and gets tricked into driving the getaway car for a bank robbery. She thinks it's a movie role, and wonders where the cameras are, but what the heck, someone says "Action!" so she plays the part.

Hollywood Boulevard is either very, very bad schlock, or a cheap satire of very, very bad schlock. It's directed by Joe Dante (Innerspace) and Allan Arkust (Rock 'n' Roll High School), and stuffed with familiar faces from the era's cheapest movies, so I'm guessing it's satire. It bored me silly, though.

Verdict: NO. 

♦ ♦ ♦   

Hollywood Hotel (1937)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

Ronnie Bowers (Dick Powell) is a small-town saxophone player, on his way to Hollywood and dreams of stardom. The town loves him so much, everyone shows up to sing and dance "Hooray for Hollywood" as he steps onto the plane for California.

This is a backstage show-biz fantasy, with mistaken identities and cockamamy dialogue. An egotistical star exclaims, "People, people, people! Isn't there anybody else in the world but people?" Another big star is reduced to hitchhiking, and sticks his thumb out like it's been nominated for an award. The movie's full of that sort of thing — old-style humor, and it's pleasant enough, but never funny.

It's directed by Busby Berkeley, which is usually a good indication. There are no particularly Berkeleyesque dance numbers, but there are some grand camera swoops during an orchestral number, and the opening credits scroll diagonally.

Whatever Berkeley adds, though, Powell subtracts. He is the dullest movie star in the history of movie stars. He's not an awful actor, only unfailingly average, or a bit below. He has a dopey face that's always smirking, and unless it's a close-up, he is always the least interesting person on the screen.

But wait, there's more. Occasionally he bursts into song, and his singing is no better or worse than any average bloke in the shower. Same as with his acting, when Powell sings you wonder why anyone thought he was good enough to be recorded.

Other than some brief blackface, the movie is innocuous and it won't injure anyone, but it can't be recommended, and Powell is why. John Wayne would've been better in the role. Boris Karloff, Gary Cooper, even Bob from Accounting would've been better than Powell.

Verdict: MAYBE. 

♦ ♦ ♦      

Hollywood or Bust (1956)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

This is the last Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis comedy, and the first I've seen since I was a kid. Lewis plays a movie nerd who wins a new convertible in a lottery; Martin plays a singer and con-man who's counterfeited the winning ticket. Since there's only one convertible to be won, they're declared co-owners.

They're strangers, but become buddies, of course. Dumb stuff happens as they drive together to Hollywood, and more dumb stuff happens when they get there. Some of it's funny — maybe more of it than you'd expect.

Lewis singing in his silly voice is an acquired taste I haven't acquired, but the film has Anita Ekberg, and it's genuinely funny when it morphs into a poke at War and Peace. Didn't see that coming.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦      

Hollywood Steps Out (1941)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

This is a Merrie Melodies cartoon short, set in a Hollywood nightclub, where celebrity caricatures make poorly impersonated small talk.

There are two or three tiny chuckles, but the fun of it is trying to identify all the movie stars. I spotted Cagney, Gable, Crosby, Frankenstein, Cary Grant, Edward G Robinson, Johnny Weissmuller, Jimmy Stewart, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Peter Lorre, Henry Fonda, Buster Keaton, two Marx Brothers, and Three Stooges, but there were another dozen stars I couldn't ID.

Verdict: MAYBE.

♦ ♦ ♦     

The Life of Brian (1979)
a/k/a Monty Python's The Life of Brian
Streaming free at Internet Archive

O holy night
The stars are brightly shining
It is the night of the dear Savior's birth

Verily, behold, even as Jesus Hisself was being squeezed out by the virgin in the stable at an overbooked hotel, yea and forsooth, another child was being birthed in the next stable over. That child was Brian.

The Life of Brian is a parody of religious movies, Ben-Hur and such, and hits the mark well, but what you'll remember more is Monty Python's good-natured skewering of religion. Pity this man Brian Cohen, who's neither God nor godlike, but every time he opens his yap, people yearning for something to believe think he's the friggin' messiah.

Being a moderate fan of Monty Python and a true believer in atheism, I'm the target market for this flick, yet somehow I'd never seen it until tonight. It's no disappointment.

There are lots of laughs, and since the jokes are about Brian, not Jesus, only the most hypersensitive Christians could be offended. See it with a Christian, though, just to be sure.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦      

• The mysterious C.C. Williams: Emmys, Oscars, Chippendales, children's TV… and XXX films 

• Sixty years of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. — or "The Sexagenarian Affair" 

• Lionsgate studio signs deal with AI company, hopes to eliminate storyboard artists and VFX crews 

Yet another reason to watch old movies and ignore the new.

    9/24/2024   

• • • Coming attractions • • •     

Hollywood Story (1951)
Hollywood Vietnam (2005)
The Holy Flying Circus (2011)
The Holy Girl (2004)
Home Alone (1990)
Home for the Holidays (1972)
    ... plus schlock,
            shorts,
                and surprises out of alphabetical order

— — —

Now accepting movie recommendations,
especially starting with the letter 'I'.
Just add a comment, below.
— — —

Illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Arguments & recommendations are welcome, but no talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff. 

 

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