QUEENIE OF HOLLYWOOD
Educational Pictures.
Release date: November 8, 1931.
Running time: 21 minutes (1908 feet).
Directed by William Goodrich (Roscoe Arbuckle).
Produced by Jack White.
Story and Dialogue by Ernest Pagano and Jack Townley.
Cast:
Rita Flynn - as "Rita"
Virginia Brooks - as "Virginia"
Jeanne Farrin - as "Jeanne"
Fern Emmett - as landlady
"Pooch" as "Queenie"
"Those Hollywood Girls Hit a New Laugh Pace!" So promises Educational's Press Material for this short. Last year Cinefest brought you CRASHING HOLLYWOOD, the second in the series of six "Three Hollywood Girls" comedy shorts produced by Educational Pictures' Ideal Comedies unit. This time we present the fourth in the series, and usual our three friends are still trying to crash Hollywood. The girls find all the studios closed down for the summer so take jobs as chambermaids. But due to a misunderstanding they are mistaken for visiting royalty, with Jeanne even thought to be the Princess of Moronia. By chance a convention of movie producers happens to be taking place at the same hotel where the girls are to be employed. So after much comedy and confusion it is not hard to predict that our girls will be noticed and signed up - but maybe not as actresses this time! Our three stars for today's adventure are Rita Flynn (the only actress to star in all six shorts in the series), Virginia Brooks (making her third appearance of five) and newcomer Jeanne Farrin, appearing in her only series entry. In HOLLYWOOD LUCK, the next short in the series, she would be replaced by none other than Betty Grable, making her only "Hollywood Girls" short during a brief period during which she worked at Educational under the name Frances Dean. All six shorts in the series were directed by Roscoe Arbuckle while he was still being billed as William Goodrich. Educational's publicity material relates that Arbuckle tutored star Virginia Brooks with an extra two weeks of special instructions in the art of "bumping" (which they explain is studio jargon for making comedy falls).Each of the six "Hollywood Girls" shorts had different theme music, and for this entry we are treated to a brief excerpt from a rarely recorded 1929 tune called "Everything Happens for the Best" written by bandleader Harold Leonard along with Walter Fett and W.R. Williams. Printsof the films in the "Three Hollywood Girls" series are not common and today we are pleased to present an original struck in 1934.
(Richard Finegan)