Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

blanche-2 Tay Garnett had a flair for comedy, and he proves it again with this film, "Stand-In" from 1937, starring Leslie Howard, Joan Blondell, and Humphrey Bogart. Howard plays businesslike accountant Atterbury Dodd, who comes out to Hollywood to find out what the problem is with Collosal Studios, which the owner wants to sell. The studio isn't making money, and it should be. When Dodd gets out to LA, he meets stand in Lester Plum (Blondell), a former child star who falls for him. Of course, he's completely unaware of anything on a personal level and she is constantly thwarted. He's only in Hollywood to find out why the movie factory is losing money.Dodd learns that a director, Koslofski, is making a jungle movie, Sex and Satan starring a star on the wane, Thelma Cheri. Doug Quintain, who heads up the studio, is in love with her in spite of himself. It turns out there's not only amazing waste and pilfering going on at the studio, but a plot is afoot to make the studio lose money so it is ripe for purchase by an unscrupulous businessman who eats up small studios. This will put everyone at the studio out of work. Can Dodd save the day? Howard is great as Dodd, a man with few social skills and a mathematical mind. Blondell is adorable as Lester, who started life as a Shirley Temple wannabee and now is a stand in. Bogart gives his usual fine performance as the harried producer who has everything hanging on a film where the ape has proved to be more popular than the star.Very good movie. Tay Garnett did "Love is News," another delightful comedy, available on the Tyrone Power Matinée Idol Collection. In a tribute to Power in 2008, "Love is News" was the hit of the three-day tribute. Garnett's work is worth checking out.

Igenlode Wordsmith Leslie Howard is one of that handful of actors whose name alone on the credits will get me to watch anything; but given the variety of other talent involved and the general recommendation I'd heard for the film, I have to admit I was left somewhat disappointed in this one.It's not that "Stand-In" is a bad picture, as such. It's amusing so far as it goes. But the entertainment seems an entirely surface one; I felt that somewhere it was missing the heart that would have made it a much better film, and that has for me provided more enjoyment from films more obviously flawed.A contemporary reviewer commented that Leslie Howard came across, despite valiant efforts, as ill at ease with physical slapstick better suited to a Harold Lloyd, and suggested he would have been more at home with a more verbal form of comedy; and this may be part of the problem. But I think for me the trouble was just a basic inability to engage with any of the characters on any level beyond the most superficial. Atterbury Dodd's significant trait is emptying ashtrays - for Douglas Quintain it is carrying around a small dog. Beyond this sort of character shorthand there is little depth to either of them: the film is a quick and cheerful satire on the studio set-up, but I didn't actually enjoy it as much as, say, "The Falcon in Hollywood". By the time we get to the stage at which the hero returns unexpectedly to find himself being lampooned, I felt the situation really ought to provoke a pang of partisanship rather than a mild titter.The role of Atterbury Dodd, the dry-as-dust bespectacled accountant who discovers sympathy for his fellow men and becomes an unlikely hero, is one that might have been typecast for Leslie Howard, and one that he could probably have sleepwalked through if necessary. However, he plays the part here gamely enough, somewhat hampered in the ultimate showdown by his convincing portrayal of a man who literally can't see straight: contrary to Hollywood convention, Dodd is genuinely dependent on his spectacles and cannot be magically transformed into an action hero by losing them. He delivers his big speech in golden-haired clean-cut Scarlet Pimpernel mode, but does it while effectively as blind as a bat -- a fine piece of acting on Howard's part, but the whole sudden conversion from number-pusher to philanthropist is not an entirely convincing character transformation. Likewise, Quintain's much-mentioned (and plot-necessary) love for the thoroughly obnoxious leading lady is stated, but never really credibly depicted. This is lightweight comedy, carried out more or less by-the-numbers.The other thing that puzzled me was my conviction that I'd seen certain isolated scenes of the film elsewhere, without having any recollection whatsoever of the plot! The scene where the dancing-lesson ends up with feet drawn all over the floor could easily be generic comedy (and in fact I'm now pretty sure I'd seen it in a silent short earlier this year), but that 'jungle woman' footage is very distinctive, and where I could have seen it before is more than I can guess. Perhaps some "100 Greatest Moments" compilation of spoofs and disasters? Joan Blondell makes a cheerful girl-next-door heroine, although I couldn't help being distracted into mentally calculating backwards and working out that her days as a winsome child singer must surely have been before the introduction of talking pictures -- a vaudeville act perhaps? (One side effect of seeing this picture at the National Film Theatre was that the overheard protest "I starred in that role in the silent era!" resulted in an audience murmur of sympathy instead of a laugh at the aging actress' expense...) Overall the film is an unobjectionable comedy. But it's not the overlooked gem of Humphrey Bogart's -- or Leslie Howard's -- career that I had somewhat rashly been given to expect, and it's not especially funny.

J. Spurlin I just watched a half-great movie. "Stand-in" is a spoof of Hollywood show biz with Leslie Howard and Joan Blondell in top form. The first hour is one of the best stretches of screwball comedy I've seen; the last half hour stinks. I thought, so what? I had my fun.Atterbury Dodd (Howard), an employee of Pettypacker & Sons in New York, has numbers and figures flowing in his blood along with the corpuscles, to paraphrase a girl he's about to meet. He clashes with the eldest Pettypacker himself (Tully Marshall) over the sale of Colossal Studios out in California. Dodd argues against selling it, so Pettypacker sends him to Hollywood to find out why the movie factory is losing money. Back at Colossal, Koslofski (Alan Mowbray), a director with a cheap foreign accent, is making a jungle picture called "Sex and Satan" with Thelma Cheri (Marla Shelton), a leading lady whose hips do all her acting.That's according to her producer and former lover, Doug Quintain (Humphrey Bogart), a guy who always carries his Scottish terrier under his arm. Dodd finds himself schmoozed by the publicist Tom Potts (Jack Carson) and harassed by an aggressive stage mother (Ann O'Neal) the moment he arrives, sending him fleeing to somewhere no one can find him: Mrs. Mack's boarding house for broken-down actors, which includes the former child star Lester Plum, a.k.a. Sugar Plum (Blondell), who is now a stand-in for Thelma Cheri. Soon he discovers there's a plot to sabotage the studio and sell it to the unscrupulous Ivor Nassau (C. Henry Gordon). Meanwhile, Plum becomes Dodd's secretary, falls in love with him, and is annoyed to find that he admires her—for her mind.The joys of this film are many. The wheelchair-bound Marshall seems spry enough to compete in "Murderball." O'Neal plays harmonica as her repulsive young daughter brassily sings "Is It True What They Say About Dixie"—only to hear Dodd shout that the girl ought to be out playing in the sun. The boarders at Mrs. Mack's include Charles Middleton, who is perpetually dressed as Abraham Lincoln; Emerson Treacy (Spanky's dad in a couple of "Our Gang" shorts) as the stunt man who has his pride; and Mary MacLaren, who can't get work in a remake of a silent picture she had starred in. Blondell hilariously sings "On the Good Ship Lollypop" and later gives Howard jujitsu lessons. And scenes from "Sex and Satan" show the gorilla out-acting the leading lady.In the first hour, hardly anything is bad. Jack Carson, in a very typical role, gives an oddly strained performance. The only significant defect is Bogart as the producer. Remember that great scene in "The Big Sleep" where Phillip Marlowe puts on glasses and pretends to be a snippy bookworm? It shows that Bogart ought to have been able to pull off screwball comedy, but here he bites off his lines like Sam Spade.Anyway, after a uproarious first hour, the movie drops dead. Dodd loses his job and so does everyone else at the studio; and suddenly the tone of the movie becomes earnest, a paean to working class types and a would-be inspiring demonstration of what the little guy can do if he'll just organize against the fat cats. Frank Capra could pull this stuff off, but Tay Garnett directing a script based on a Clarence Budington Kelland novel, cannot. The last half-hour is so bad it can make you forget what you had just watched before.But don't. How many movies are great entertainment for even an hour?

dbborroughs Atterbury Dodd is opposed to his New York banker bosses selling off Colossal Studios for only half of what he thinks its worth. Being the first person ever to stand up to the big boss he's sent off to see whats going on with the seemingly failing studio. Once there he finds that the buyer is manipulating the latest Colossal movie into being a turkey so he can buy the studio cheap and turn a profit when he closes it down. Dodd also runs into Miss Plum who will soon becomes Dodd's guide through the madness of film making.Much of the film is concerned with Dodd dealing with the insanity of film studios while not realizing that he's falling in love with Miss Plum. The last third of the film concerns efforts to turn save the studio and the film.This is really a Leslie Howard movie. Howard and Joan Blondell, as Miss Plum are a wonderful screen couple and one wishes there was even more time of them together. Although Humphrey Bogart is listed third he's in maybe 20 minutes of this often funny film. He is wonderful in a the role of the previous studio head and producer of the turkey in the making. The film is filled with funny lines and fleeting appearances, Charles Middleton is a scream; as is a stuntman who refuses to do his stunt for money. This is a funny funny movie especially if you love old movies.The problem is that the film is at times unfocused. Is it a comedy? A Romance? The sequences with the villain seem to be from another movie. I question why some of the characters are allowed to be so annoying, Potts, the publicity man in particular, is the screen version of fingernails on a blackboard. I'm sure there were people like that in Hollywood, but I never want to meet them.I also have a problem with the ending which ends too soon for my tastes.Still this is 90 minutes of great fun, especially if you love old films.Worth seeking out, possibly even buying.7 out of 10 with spikes of truly wonderful moments (Going under the table for one)