International House (1933 film)

International House (1933) is a comedy film, directed by A. Edward Sutherland and released by Paramount Pictures. The tagline of the film was "the Grand Hotel of comedy".

Synopsis

The film is a mix of standard and slapstick interlaced with numerous acts and bits, like a vaudeville variety show, in the style of the Big Broadcast pictures that were also released by Paramount during the 1930s. In addition to the typical lunacy by the comic players, it also provides a snapshot of some popular stage and radio acts of the era.

After a few brief scenes in the International Settlement in Shanghai, the setting moves over 200 miles away to the International House Hotel, a large metropolitan hotel in Wuhu, China ("Wuhu" also being a pun on the greeting "Yoo hoo").

The ostensible plot line concerns a Chinese inventor (Edmund Breese as "Dr. Wong") premiering a "radioscope", an early version of television. Unlike actual television, the mechanism does not need a camera, but its monitor can focus in and pick up on acts around the world, relaying sound and visuals as though it were a combination of a radio and telescope. Dr. Wong has brought his device to the hotel in an attempt to attract a commercial buyer to develop it.

Dr. Henry R. Quail (Fields) is one of many people from all over the world converging on the hotel, though he is the only one not hoping to buy (or steal) Dr. Wong's television invention, as he was intending to land in Kansas City but went off-course in his autogyro. Plotlines also involve four-times-divorced American celebrity Peggy Hopkins Joyce playing herself, avoiding one of her ex-husbands, the jealous Russian General Petronovich (Bela Lugosi); Tommy (Stuart Erwin) as a prospective buyer from an American electric company hoping to buy Wong's invention and finally wed his sweetheart Carol (Sari Maritza); resident physician Dr. Burns (George Burns) and his goofy aide Nurse Allen (Gracie Allen) dealing with a quarantine on the hotel; and the exasperation of the hotel's fussy and frustrated manager (Franklin Pangborn). All of this is broken up with transmissions Dr. Wong receives on his radioscope, as well as a short floor show featuring Lona Andre and Sterling Holloway in the hotel's rooftop garden restaurant.

The film ends with Fields being chased as he drives his American Austin automobile through several rooms of the hotel and up and down stairs before driving back into the hold of his autogyro and taking off.

Cast

Actors

• Peggy Hopkins Joyce as herself
• W. C. Fields as Prof. Henry R. Quail
• Stuart Erwin - Tommy Nash
• George Burns - Doctor Burns
• Gracie Allen - Nurse Allen^[1]
• Sari Maritza - Carol Fortescue
• Lumsden Hare - Sir Mortimer Fortescue
• Bela Lugosi - Gen. Nicholas Petronovich
• Franklin Pangborn - Hotel Manager
• Edmund Breese - Dr. Wong, Chinese inventor

Performers

• Stoopnagle and Budd as F. Chase Taylor and Budd Hulick
• Rudy Vallee as himself
• Cab Calloway as himself, with his band^[2]
• Rose Marie as herself ("Baby Rose Marie")
• Lona Andre as China Teacup
• Sterling Holloway - Coffee Mug

Production

Pre-Code elements

The film was produced before the Hollywood Production Code took effect in July 1934, and is notable for the kind of risqué subject matter, humor and costumes associated with Pre-Code Hollywood. For example, Peggy Hopkins Joyce appears as herself and makes several humorous references to her many divorces, a topic that would become almost completely off-limits with the enforcing of the Code. Cab Calloway sings his song "Reefer Man," which describes a man smoking marijuana and becoming high from it. Fields' Dr. Quayle responds to what he mistakes as homosexual flirting with "Don't let the posy fool you!" referring to his own boutonniere, which he tears off and tosses away. Several of the revealing costumes of the female dancers in the "She Was a China Teacup" song-and-dance routine show the bare outline of breasts, something that the Code would also virtually eliminate.

In the sequence with the Austin - the smallest car sold in America at that time - W.C. Fields remarks that it had "belonged to the Postmaster General." This was a potshot at Will H. Hays, the diminutive former Postmaster General who was then trying to enforce his Hollywood Production Code.

Earthquake

During the filming of International House, on March 10, 1933, a small tremor struck the set while cameras were rolling, and a Paramount News newsreel featured the story. A documentary featurette on W. C. Fields accompanying the film's DVD release, however, reveals that Fields and director Sutherland faked the footage from the set as a publicity stunt. The actual earthquake was centered in nearby Long Beach, California. About 120 people were killed and most of the downtown section was destroyed.

Music

Lyricist Leo Robin and composer Ralph Rainger wrote three songs for the film, "She Was a China Tea-cup and He Was Just a Mug," performed offscreen by an unidentified male vocalist; "Thank Heaven For You," sung onscreen by Rudy Vallee; and "My Bluebird's Singing the Blues," sung onscreen by Baby Rose Marie. Cab Calloway and His Orchestra perform 1932's "Reefer Man," written by Andy Razaf (lyrics) and J. Russel Robinson (music).

References

External links