Hollywood Hotel (Warner Bros.) (1937)

ee ee i a ak a in oe Galaxy of Stars In ‘Hollywood Hotel’ Film Hit Millions of radio fans accustomed for three years to turn the dial to the “Hollywood Hotel” air show, will soon have a chance to see their favorite program depicted on the screen. For an entire broadcast with Louella O. Parsons, famous columnist and movie commentator, as mistress of ceremonies, has been incorporated into the Warner Bros. musical comedy “Hollywood Hotel,” which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. Raymond Paige and his 40-piece orchestra, veterans of the air show, play Paige’s variation of “Dark Eyes,” together with the air show theme songs—“You Ought to Be in Pictures” and “Blue Moon.” Other standbys of the air show— Frances Langford, Jerry Cooper and Announcer Ken Niles—likewise play their accustomed roles. Biggest thrill for the fans, however, is likely to be the parade of stars. A sufficient number to grace a dozen movies, with plenty left over, are pictured dining in the Orchid Room and taking a bow when introduced by Miss Parsons. Stars instroduced in the broadcast scene by Miss Parsons include Marion Davies, Edward G. Robinson, Bette Davis, Leslie Howard, Olivia De Havilland, Errol Flynn, Joan Blondell, Brian Aherne, and a host more, The picture, an inside story of Hollywood, stars Dick Powell with a supporting cast including Rosemary and Lola Lane, Ted Healy, Hugh Herbert, Glenda Farrell, and two famous orchestras — Paige’s and Benny Goodman and his swing band. Busby Berkeley directed. SISTERS REUNITED Rosemary and Lola Lane, playing dual femme leads in Warner Bros.’ “Hollywood Hotel,” which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre, were visited on the set one day by their mother and sister, Priscilla. The latter had been in the east with Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians since making her recent screen debut with kosemary in “Varsity Show.” Mat 126—15c LOUELLA PARSONS — Hostess to Filmland’s great on her famous “Hollywood Hotel’? radio hour, makes her screen debut in the movie version, “Hollywood Hotel,’’ coming to the Strand. Mat 202—30c SINGING SWEETHEARTS—Rosemary Lane and Dick Powell are a croonin’ love team in “Hollywood Hotel,” the new star-studded filmusical, which is coming to the Strand Theatre on Friday. ‘Hollywood Hotel Moving in Town Everyone in the United States possessed of a radio has undoubtedly heard that big weekly broadcast called “Hollywood Hotel,” supposedly originating from an immense and luxurious hostelry in the capital of Filmland, which has been the most popular air program for the last three years. And now “Hollywood Hotel,” in the form of a musical comedy, is coming to the Strand Theatre next Friday as a _ presentation from Warner Bros. It is not merely an episode entertainment, like its namesake of the ether-waves, but a fully-plotted dramatic show with a star-studded cast. Dick Powell has the most important part—that of a young crooner who comes to Ho!lywood with promises of a movie job, and gets into all sorts of difficulties before he wins success. The Lane sisters, Lola and Rosemary, have the leading feminine roles, the former as a temperamental movie star who refuses to appear at a premiere, and the latter as a totally obscure hotel worker who takes Lola’s place on the big night. Louella Parsons, famed dramatic critic and originator of the ‘“Hollywood Hotel” air show, plays herself in the picture, acting as mistress of ceremonies and introducing a great number of stars to her audience in the famed “Orecnid Room.” Among the bevy of funmakers who have important roles are Hugh Herbert, Ted Healy, Glenda Farrell, Johnnie (‘Scat’) Davis, Alan Mowbray, Mabel Todd, Allyn Joslyn, Grant Mitchell, Frances Langford and Edgar Kennedy. Then, too, there are Benny Goodman’s Band and Raymond Paige’s orchestra. What swing fan could ask for more? Aliana: Nettie Aladdin Shamed By Movie Makers Aladdin could rub that old brass lamp and make a castle rise. Maybe he could have dished up a caravansery, too. But when it came to bringing the world’s most famous imaginary hotel into actual visual existence, the job had to be left to the movies. Easy enough for those movie magicians to build a hotel from garret to rooftree. Nothing hard about that. But to build one to fit the preconceived ideas of 130,000,000 radio-listening Americans was something else again. For the hotel was to be none other than the “Hollywood Hotel” —heretofore only an imaginary setting for the famous air program. “Hollywood Hotel” is the gigantic musical comedy—starring Dick Powell and directed by Busby Berkeley—which opens next week at the Strand Theatre. Sets include the lobby and lounge, the coffee shop, a movie queen’s apartment, another somewhat more typical apartment, the telephone operators’ sanctum, and—the Orchid Room. This room hasn’t a single angular wall. Everything is curving. The sweeping stairway curves. The dance floor is elliptical. The delicate white railings, in Wedgewood motif, which enclose little dining nooks, are circular. The orchestral podium on which Raymond Paige holds sway over his 40-piece orchestra, has more curves than Dizzy Dean. The one facing it across the dance floor, where Benny Goodman presides over his famous swing band, is a semicircle. Even the hotel garden was not overlooked. For what would “Hollywood Hotel” be without yew alleys, quiet retreats down which lovers may wander in the moonlight; without its splashing fountain and rock-walled basin where giant water lilies float? Orchid Room Of the Air Is Seen in Film Millions of radio fans who listen in on the “Hollywood Hotel” air show undoubtedly imagine it is broadcast from an actual hotel of that name, magnificent beyond anything else ever conceived. In fact there is little guesswork about that, for many citizens of the cinema capital have had tourists approach them on Hollywood Boulevard and ask directions to the hotel. Warner Bros. must have had something of the sort in mind when they started producing a spectacular filmusical of the same name as the air show out at their studio. And in stage settings for the production they set out to give the fans a concrete visualization of the hotel of their dreams. Investigating rumors of colossal spending, this correspondent visited the Orchid Room set. Now, we’ve seen hotels, but—they’ve got something there! As we skirt the side lines, out of camera range, it’s hard to make our feet behave. For Benny Goodman and his famous swing band are playing “Christopher Columbus.” The Orchid Room looks like a vast flower basket at the bottom of which are clumps of living flowers. They are the lovely women seated around at tables or swaying on the dance floor. Now Frances Langford drifts up with Bob Haas, Puckish art director. Pleased as Punch he tells us about the set. The vast room is floored in black glass. Circular walls are of delphinium blue satin, 1500 yards of it. “Hollywood Hotel,” which stars Dick Powell, opens at the Strand Theatre next Friday. In the cast are such notables as Rosemary and Lola Lane, Hugh Herbert, Ted Healy, and the famed writer and radio impressario Louella Parsons. Then also there are Benny Goodman’s famous Swing Band and Raymond Paige’s Orchestra. Mat 105—15c SWING MASTER Benny Goodman makes his swing band set the tempo for the all-star musical show, “Hollywood Hotel,” coming Friday to the Strand Theatre.