Hollywood Hotel

The 1937 Busby Berkeley movie! It's missing the extravagant Busby numbers, but it's still packed with all the other kinds of show numbers possible! Dick Powell is the star, but there are so many guests getting their little moment of fame. The story is almost secondary within all the fantastic nonsense. Best bit for me was the extended Benny Goodman & Orchestra number which was the closest we got to a Busby trademark as for as visuals went. The Lane Sisters, Rosemary & Lola, where terrific too.

Joyously fun and entertaining romp is lightweight and fluffy to a fault but that's part of its charm - silly plot prefiguring SINGIN IN THE RAIN is merely an excuse to tie together some terrific vaudevillian style comedy routines and musical numbers, with a couple of excuses for Goodman and his band to indulge in an extended jam-session. Surprisingly subdued work from Berkeley behind the camera still spotlights his performers very well.

Enjoyable despite problematic plot - and the "lookalike" characters don't even really look much alike (the actresses look like sisters, which I believe they are, and bear a resemblance without actually looking like each other.) An embarrassing blackface part is somewhat canceled out by the appearance of some genuinely good black musicians playing with Benny Goodman. IMDB says this was the first time a racially-mixed band was depicted in a Hollywood movie.