Still chipping away at some old Academy Award nominees and bangin' out some Oscar Film Journal entries here at Enuffa.com!
Therefore let's talk about another nominee from the 1920s, The Hollywood Revue, essentially a stage bound song and dance show captured on film at a time when audiences marveled at the fact that movies now had sound. To capitalize on this still-novel technological innovation, MGM put all their contracted stars in one extravaganza, complete with three segments shot in two-strip Technicolor. There's no narrative or drama here, just some songs (including "Singin' in the Rain"), a lot of dancing and a bit of light comedy. The show is MCed by Jack Benny and features appearances from Laurel and Hardy, Joan Crawford, Marion Davies, Charles King, Bessie Love, Anita Page (the three stars from the studio's Oscar-winning The Broadway Melody), Buster Keaton, Lionel Barrymore, and so on.
As a 1920s filmgoer I'm sure this was considered pretty spectacular, seeing so many luminaries in one place, and with a big audience it probably felt very much like seeing a live theater revue. A century later watching it on a TV it's a bit of a slog to sit through. The humor is mildly amusing but nowhere near as funny as say The Marx Brothers (whose debut film The Cocoanuts came out the same year but was passed over for Oscar consideration), and some of the dance numbers are very impressive - a Russian troupe called the Natova Company delivers a dazzling acrobatic routine in the second act - but unfortunately not captured with much photographic panache. You're mostly getting a clinical, flat vantage point of the action aside from a couple Busby-esque shots. Jack Benny arguably steals the show with a handful of fun little comedy set pieces, such as a sketch where William Haines tears off pieces of Benny's suit.
Like The Broadway Melody, this film serves as more of an interesting historical document than as a cinematic experience. It's certainly an odd choice to be a Best Picture nominee as it's not a film in the traditional sense, more of a promotional piece for MGM. The segments are all pretty short so no one gets to really shine, we're just given a small taste of everyone's talents. It's an academic watch more than anything else.
I give The Hollywood Revue ** out of ****.
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