the audience applauded

Purely Joyful Movie!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

"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.

Like the cover states, it has everything! It has Jimmy Durante fighting lions, Laurel and Hardy, musical numbers, laughs, Mickey Mouse, and even the Three Stooges (with Ted Healy) appear as reporters. We also get a color Disney animated short, a funny scene featuring Laurel and Hardy, Lupe Velez, broken eggs, and a revealing dress, not to mention the naked shadow of a woman's breast. This movie is so typical of the 30s upper class lifestyle, it almost felt like I was transported to that time period. This is one of those movies that I mainly like just for the look of it. Sure it has almost no plot whatsoever, but you could say that about almost any "party" film. Overall, it's just a really fun movie. And for a little bonus- check out the outfits on some of the ladies. Yowza!

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.

For film buffs, this one has real curiosity value. There are plenty of reasons for today's fans to be turned off by the poorly staged musical interludes--but movie buffs will appreciate seeing Lupe Velez, The Three Stooges, Laurel & Hardy, Mickey Mouse and Jimmy Durante all doing their best to liven things up. The script is a mess and somebody came up with the idea of having all the creaky episodes turn out to be a dream that Jimmy Durante wakes up from for the final scene, a device that may have been well ahead of its time.Durante is his old irrepressible self but the highlight of the film is when he interacts with an animated Mickey Mouse, who then proceeds to steal the film by introducing a color short from Disney called "Hot Chocolate Soldiers".The cartoon sequence is the only valid reason for paying attention at this point. Amusing, clever and maybe astonishing is the word when you consider Disney made this little color cartoon in 1934, before his studio was capable of the kind of stuff they did later on.Well worth watching for Mickey alone!