International House (1933 film)

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International House was a comedy film released in 1933, directed by A. Edward Sutherland. The tagline of the film was “Grand Hotel of comedy”.

[edit] Cast

The film was a mix of numerous acts and bits, like a Vaudeville variety show, interlaced through the ostensible plot line, which had to do with a Chinese inventor trying to sell an early version of television. Unlike real television, this imagined mechanism did not need a camera, but its monitor could zoom in on acts around the world. In addition to the typical Fieldsian comic lunacy, it also provides a snapshot of some popular stage and radio acts of the era, in the style of the Big Broadcast pictures that were also released during the 1930s.

The setting was supposed to be a hotel in Wuhu, China, (from the dialogue, "Wuhu" was clearly chosen as a pun on the greeting "Yoo hoo") and the "international" in the title resonated with the international district of Shanghai, but of course it was filmed on the Hollywood back lot.

The film was produced in the days before the Hays Office fully controlled filmmaking, and was notable for several risqué or questionable references (by 1933 standards). The most interesting of these, to film and music historians, is probably Calloway's song Reefer Man, in which bass player Al Morgan does a slap stringbass bit as if in a trance and Calloway sings about him being "high" on "reefers".