INTERNATIONAL HOUSE (1933)

Folks are converging on the International Hotel in the town of Wu Hu, China, to see and bid on the rights to a new invention by Dr. Wong: the Radioscope, an early version of television. And that, folks, is the entire plot of this movie which winds up being mostly a very hit-and-miss variety show with musicians performing and comedians doing their shtick in the service of what seems to be intended partly as a parody of the movie GRAND HOTEL. There are some characters with fairly stunted plotlines: Stuart Erwin is the mild-mannered hypochondriac representative of an American company hoping to buy the Radioscope, and when he complains of feeling ill, the hotel is put under quarantine; Peggy Hopkins Joyce plays herself, a stage actress famous for her riches and her divorces, in Wu Hu looking to hook up with a millionaire; Bela Lugosi is a Russian general and jealous former husband of Joyce's who is locked out of the hotel due to the quarantine; George Burns is the hotel doctor and Gracie Allen his nurse; Franklin Pangborn is the overwhelmed hotel manager; most importantly, W.C. Fields is a perpetually drunken eccentric who arrives in a autogyro (named the Spirit of South Brooklyn), having gotten lost on his way to Kansas City. 

But of course, the plot's not the thing here; the appeal is in the almost vaudeville-style comedy bits and songs. Fields is the star of the show and he's even funnier than usual, maybe because he doesn't have to worry about being a consistent character—he can just be mean and snarky all the time. I'd quote some of his lines, but that would take up the rest of this review. Lugosi is surprisingly good in a rare comic role. Viewers most likely to appreciate this film are those with at least a nodding acquaintance with 30s pop culture. Burns and Allen are Burns and Allen—if you like them (which I do), they don't disappoint. An odd radio comedy duo named Colonel Stoopnagle and Budd make a brief appearance; their slogan seems to have been, "Stoopnocracy is peachy." Rudy Vallee sings a love song to his megaphone and talks back to Fields through the TV set. Cab Calloway does a rather daring rendition of "Reefer Man," with lyrics like, "He smokes reefer, he gets high/And he flies to the sky." 10-year-old Baby Rose Marie (yes, the same Rose Marie who played Sally on The Dick Van Dyke Show) sings a song with a surprisingly adult snarl to her voice. Sterling Holloway dances in a surreal number (think Busby Berkeley) with the chorus, "She was a china tea cup and he was just a mug." The wild finale involves a car chase through the hotel. As I said earlier, it is a bit hit-and-miss, but the antic atmosphere will keep you going through the slower parts—usually those involving Stuart Erwin. Pictured are Joyce and Fields. [DVD]