(3 of 3)
Aside from a tendency toward orchidaceous fluttering when Lolly holds court, Hollywood Hotel is a zippy modern tune & cutie show, with a notable absence of the vast, garish night-club type of dance routine that Director Busby Berkeley used to be famous for. For story it brings Crooner Dick Powell from the first saxophone chair in Benny Goodman's band to Hollywood, involves him with a temperamental ham actress and her double (Lola & Rosemary Lane), gives him his ups & downs and several opportunities to sing. Ingeniously utilized along the way are such Hollywood staples as high-pressure pressagents, drive-in hamburger stands, confused executives, Hugh (Hoo) Herbert, the late, bellicose Ted Healy, slow-burning Edgar Kennedy, Professional Posturer Alan Mowbray. Chief side attraction: Goodman's Swing Quartet, with Percussionist Gene Krupa swinging out (see p. 58). Chief drawbacks: 1) Orchestra-man Raymond Paige's protracted 70-piece mass attack on the simple Russian melody, Dark Eyes; 2) Louella 0. Parsons.
Louella Parsons has been writing about motion pictures for 23 years, 16 of them in Hollywood for Hearst. One of her earliest jobs was to review the first Mary Pickford picture. When Hollywood Hotel was released, Mary returned the favor. Her critique: "I enjoyed every minute. . . . Louella . . . plays herself m the film, and a very pretty and slender and charming self. In fact Louella is just the same as her many friends in Hollywood know her to be—and I claim that is pretty nice." Appraising herself as a cinemactress, multiple-chinned Louella retired modestly behind the editorial we, vouchsafed that "As an actress we are a good columnist, and even not so bad on the radio."
Early in her career Louella introduced her boss to blonde young Cinemactress Marion Davies, fresh from a Manhattan convent. In the following years her influence and her Hearst salary have grown apace. Seven years ago she married Dr. Harry Watson Martin, Hollywood G. U. man. Boss Hearst's contribution to the $200,000 pile of wedding presents was a $25,000 necklace.