SYNOPSICS
The Talk of Hollywood (1929) is a English movie. Mark Sandrich has directed this movie. Nat Carr,Fay Marbe,Hope Sutherland,Sherling Oliver are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1929. The Talk of Hollywood (1929) is considered one of the best Comedy,Drama,Music movie in India and around the world.
Schlock-movie producer J. Pierpont Ginsburg, after declaring, in a Yiddish accent, that "talking pictures are in their infantry," decides to put all of his savings into a big-budgeted musical, starring the sensation of Paris (with a bad French accent), Adore Renee, and a swishy leading man, Reginald Whitlock. Meanwhile, his daughter, Judy Ginsburg, gets involved in a romance with Ginsburg's Gentile lawyer, John Applegate. His efforts aren't helped any by the projectionist who mixes up the sound-disc reels, with the images not matching the dialogue and sound effects, during a showing for prospective film buyers and exhibitors.
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The Talk of Hollywood (1929) Reviews
Early Talkie Burlesque on Vitaphone sound films
Plot: Silent movie producer J. Pierpoint Ginsburg has put off making his first talkie. Finally, he faces reality and starts his musical-comedy-drama talking production. The zany storyline is loaded with Ethnic and Gay humor which was popular during the 1920's and 1930's. Today's audience may find this to be the most politically incorrect film of all time. Personally, I found the content of this film refreshing, unique, and different. It is interesting to compare Singing in the Rain's basic plot idea with this early Talkie Burlesque on Vitaphone sound films. NOTES: 1. Al Goodman's "Follow Thru" Orchestra is a highlight. Al has one speaking line. 2. Nat Carr (Jewish dialect comedian/star) and Mark Sandrich (Writer/Director who later moved over to RKO to work on many 2 Reel comedies & features) co-wrote this script. 3. Running time is 72 Minutes.
"This is Big Time Stuff"!!!
One of the first independent musicals, produced by Prudence Pictures, successor to the silent Excellent Pictures (as in "if it's a good picture, it's Excellent"), it had a great behind the scenes pedigree. Produced and directed by Mark Sandrich who later went on to direct some of the great Astaire/ Rogers musicals, he also co-wrote the story with Nat Carr who also starred and was absolutely hilarious in it and went on to become a character actor at Warners. The movie grabs you from the start with "Presenting the International Star - Miss Fay Marbe in Her Talking Picture Debut" which happened to be Miss Marbe's last film. She reminded me of Ethelind Terry who also proved a fizzer in "Lord Byron of Broadway"(1930). Fay plays Adore Renee (how did that ever make it past - people had a more "who cares" attitude back in the roaring twenties!!) By having a "they'll never catch on" attitude to talking pictures J. Pierpont Ginsberg is watching his film empire slip through his fingers but he has now decided to make a film that will be "the talk of Hollywood"!! He needs to cast and the auditions are a scream - there is the stuttering chorus girl ("she doesn't always stutter - no, only when she talks"!!), the effeminate leading man (played by Gilbert Marbe, Fay's brother), he already has his temperamental leading lady. Sure it oversteps the boundaries of good taste and has a few off colour remarks but it has to be viewed as belonging to the time it was made. Equally funny but probably unintentional, was the love scene away from the studio between Ginsberg's lawyer, John Applegate, and his daughter Ruth (Hope Sutherland). John starts off saying "I can't tell my feelings the way they do in the pictures" and then almost breaks into song!! He doesn't but if only this scene was part of Ginsberg's new "sock it to 'em" talking picture it would be a smash!! It wouldn't be a 1929 movie without a musical interlude and with Al Goodman's Follow Thru Orchestra leading the charge the songs are toe tapping. Forget Fay Marbe's fruity French accent - she is good when her feet do the talking, although her thunder is stolen in one dance by her partner's spirited Al "Rubberlegs" Norman eccentric dance. My favourite was a crazy Egyptian dance from a flurry of chorus girls with a jazzy beat, then Marbe is back with more chorus girls (The Leonidoff Ballet Troupe) for the finale!! "That's big time stuff" and everyone agrees only to find out that the microphones have been out all day!! The ending is straight out of "Singin' in the Rain" - although this movie was made when the talkie change over was today's news and it is fascinating to see how "sound on discs" actually operated. A drunken projectionist causes mayhem with the wrong records being synchronized with the wrong reels - very, very funny. A big percentage of the cast never made another movie, although one exception was Sam Levine who appeared in the projection room scene and went on to become one of Hollywood's and Broadway's best character actors. A day after this film was released the R.C.A's Photophone Studios of Manhattan was burned to the ground because of Kleig lights setting fire to the cloth that was used to sound proof the walls from the noise of the busy streets. Careless safety measures but also attributed to the slap dash way many musicals were churned out to feed the public's huge demand. Highly Recommend.
Oy, Such A Movie
Hard to imagine how this picture got produced. Couldn't Hollywood moguls, even at such a small studio as Prudence must have been, spot a stinker? "The Talk Of Hollywood" is an inferior movie on many levels; it is poorly acted, poorly written and, most of all, poorly directed. It was Mark Sandrich's first attempt at directing a full-length feature and got him demoted; it would be five years before he reemerged to direct such films as "Top Hat", "The Gay Divorcée" and 'Holiday Inn". "The Talk Of Hollywood" is an obvious insider spoof of Sam Goldwyn and his habit of mangling the English language and with a pronounced ethnic accent. Other reviewers have rehashed the plot and how it parallels "Singing In The Rain", but you must see it to appreciate how corny the gag lines are (even for 1929) and to witness the poor timing between lines and to experience the ad-libbed quality of the storyline, as though made up on the fly. I have not mentioned the forced, amateur feel of the acting, except for someone named Fay Marbe, who seemed to have a germ of talent as a French prima donna and the star of the movie-within-the-movie. "The Talk Of Hollywood" played at Capitolfest, Rome,NY, 8/15. It is worth seeing for a look at how Hollywood could come a cropper even as it made the important transition from silent to sound.
Comedy Achieves The Mediocre.
Jay Carr, as J. Pierpont Ginsburg, the movie mogul, is about to undertake his first talking picture. His butler asks him about the screenwriter. "Oh, da SCREENwriter! He's a BRILLIANT writer! Every week he writes for more money!" When he inquires after an actress who missed her call, he's told that she's still sleeping even though it's afternoon. But don't forget, she's a star. "A STAR -- maybe dat's why she only comes out at night." If you don't find this funny, this may not be your kind of movie. I enjoyed some of it. Gentle parodies of ethnic folkways, like speech, shouldn't be confined within the borders of the ethnic group being parodied; they should be shared with the world, if they're any good. Why is it so difficult to come by a showing of "Abie's Irish Rose"? And whatever happened to "Amos and Andy"? Hey? Well, I'm glad I've got that off my chest. I feel better now. The Xanax helps. But all seriousness aside, if you don't find those gags amusing, you might not want to watch this film because there are more of them, a lot more, and some are better than others. A gay character is the male lead, and Ginsburg asks, "Are you da leading man or da leading lady? Remember, dis ain't no fairy tale." Withal, this is a clumsily made story along the lines of "Singin' in the Rain" but not nearly so funny or entertaining. Carr is the central figure and it's tempting to think that he came to Hollywood directly from vaudeville because his Yiddish accent sounds like it, rather like Chico Marx's Italian accent. But Carr is too slow to have been in vaudeville where so much depended on pace. He pauses too long between utterances. And he projects an air of fatuous self satisfaction that doesn't quite fit the part. The technology of the time was primitive but that can't account for the poor acting on the part of Carr and just about everyone else in the cast. On the plus side, everyone tries hard, and from what we can see of the legs of the girls in a chorus line that anticipates Busby Berkely's terpsichorean kaleidoscopes, they have pretty legs.
Oy vay, yassuh, wee-wee monsewer.
What a weird movie! 'The Talk of Hollywood' (filmed in New York City) has a clever title, since it deals with the then-recent talkies revolution in the movie industry. This film is basically a comedy (although not very funny), and the protagonist is a burlesque Jewish stereotype ... so it's bizarre that, at a couple of points, the plot line strives for genuine pathos as the protagonist mourns his deceased wife. This movie truly seems to have no sense of itself. The leading actress, one Fay Marbé (who?), is introduced with a screen credit indicating that she's a stage star now becoming a film star. She was neither. J. Pierpont Ginsburg (played by Nat Carr, who also co-scripted) is a successful producer of silent films who has now sunk all his funds into a talking picture that will either make him or break him. The soundtrack is recorded on Vitaphone discs. When the first reel's disc is broken by the drunken projectionist -- played by an uncredited actor, doing one of the phoniest drunk acts I've ever seen -- he merely runs the second reel's disc with the first reel's film, and so forth ... so that the sound never matches the image. Alleged hilarity ensues. A previous IMDb reviewer has suggested that this film might have been an inspiration for "Singin' in the Rain", which featured a scene in which an actress's dialogue is in synch with a male actor's body and vice versa. I doubt it; during the talkie revolution, as movies stumbled to find their voice, there were plenty of genuine horror stories along those lines: nobody had to reach for this movie to find inspiration. There are a couple of funny gags here, with Ginsburg mangling the English language in the style of Sam Goldwyn: "Talking pictures are only in their infantry." Unfortunately, there are a lot of wince-worthy gags relying on stereotypes of Jews, blacks, and a "nance". I cringed at one scene in which Ginsburg teaches an African-American actor how to talk like a "darky". Fay Marbé is faintly amusing as a French prima donna named Adore Renée (geddit?), but her cod French accent is made more annoying because several other members of this film's cast also speak in bizarre affected accents. I was especially annoyed by Hope Sutherland's weird mid-Atlantic accent. SPOILERS COMING. This movie's payoff is that very hoary cliché in which a serious endeavour fails so badly that it succeeds as a comedy. Also, a major plot point is revealed in a title card, as if this talking picture were a SILENT movie. I'll just barely rate this bizarre (but interesting) failure 4 points out of 10.