Stand-In (1937) - full review!
This spoof (satire) of how the Hollywood studio system used to work (behind the scenes) is filled with clichés and slapstick comedy; it will entertain most classic movie fans, at least for the first two thirds or so, before it bogs down. Just before Leslie Howard was to play Professor Henry Higgins in Pygmalion (1938), he played a similar character in this one, Atterbury Dodd, a Wall Street wizard mathematician who refers to people as units in his calculations. Dodd is sent by his employers, the Pettypacker family bankers, to assess whether they should accept Ivor Nassau's offer of $5 million for Colossal Pictures, which the math whiz has determined should be worth at least twice that amount to their stockholders. C. Henry Gordon plays Nassau, who plans to fire all the employees and liquidate the studio's assets upon his acquisition.
The title character is played by Joan Blondell, as Lester Plum, the first employee that Dodd meets. She's the stand-in for the fading siren star (Marla Shelton as Thelma Cheri) of Colossal’s latest picture "Sex and Satan", which is being directed by a fussy foreign director named Koslofski (Alan Mowbray) and produced by Douglas Quintain, played by none other than Humphrey Bogart; his character carries around a terrier, is frustrated that after making Cheri a star that she no longer needs (or loves) him, and is likely to return to being a drunkard if "Sex and Satan" isn't a hit. Jack Carson plays the studio's (obnoxious) partying publicist Tom Potts; he's supposed to distract the mathematician by day while Cheri does the same by night. Tully Marshall, J.C. Nugent, and William Mong play the Pettypackers. Esther Howard (uncredited) plays Mrs. Mack, the landlady of the boarding house where Atterbury stays, in the room next to Lester's, to ‘hide’ from Potts; Charles Middleton (also uncredited) plays one of her boarders, an actor dressed as Abraham Lincoln. Theodore von Eltz appears uncredited as the lead actor opposite Cheri in "Sex and Satan". An early funny scene involves Dodd telling a stage mother that her dancing daughter Elvira (can't remember what the name of this child actress) should be home playing with toys instead of being exploited.
The film was directed by Tay Garnett, with a screenplay by Gene Towne and Graham Baker that was based on the novel by Clarence Budington Kelland. Blondell's character is the street smart insider that helps Atterbury learn the ropes, everything that doesn't make (financial) sense is explained away with "that's pictures"; she also says "skip it" in lieu of educating him as to who Shirley Temple or Clark Gable are. She helps him and falls for him, but is then frustrated by his lack of interest in anything but a business relationship, particularly when he spends his evenings with Cheri. It's Dodd’s eventual, inevitable, and rather unsatisfactory transformation that keeps this from being a better movie.
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