What Price Hollywood? (1932)

The career of a waitress takes off when she meets an amiable drunken Hollywood producer.

Director:

George Cukor

Writers:

Gene Fowler (by), Rowland Brown (by),

Stars:

Constance Bennett, Lowell Sherman, Neil Hamilton

Nominated for 1 Oscar.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Constance Bennett	...	Mary Evans
Lowell Sherman	...	Max Carey
Neil Hamilton	...	Lonny Borden
Gregory Ratoff	...	Julius Saxe
Brooks Benedict	...	Muto
Louise Beavers	...	The Maid
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
George Reed	...	Undetermined Role (scenes deleted)

Storyline

Brown Derby waitress Mary Evans befriends seldom-sober director Max Carey and is soon in the big-time. She hooks eastern millionaire Lonnie Borden but he soon tires of the Hollywood lifestyle and of playing second fiddle to a star. Carey looks on with interest when he can see straight.

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Plot Keywords:

waitress | pregnancy | screen test | actor | starlet | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

Passed

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English French

Release Date:

24 June 1932 (USA)

Also Known As:

Hollywood Madness

Filming Locations:

First United Methodist Church - 6817 Franklin Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$411,676 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

RKO Pathé Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Photophone System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Max Carey was modeled after Lowell Sherman himself, who was known to be an alcoholic, as well as silent film director Marshall Neilan and actor John Barrymore (who was Sherman's brother-in-law at the time). The wedding satirized the 1927 nuptials of Vilma Banky and Rod La Roque.

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Goofs

When Mary is filming her first bit part she drops her script on the stairs, which then disappears between shots.

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Quotes

[first lines]
[Mary Evans is admiring a magazine photo of Clark Gable]
Mary Evans: Hmmmm. Oh, boy!
[Mary places the magazine photo against her face and pretends Gable is her lover. She speaks in an exaggerated voice]
Mary Evans: Daaahling, how I love you my daaahling, I love you I do.
[she puts the magazine down and returns to her normal voice]
Mary Evans: It's getting late and I must scram.

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Connections

Featured in We Who Wait: The Adverts & TV Smith (2012)

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Soundtracks

"All of Me"
(1931) (uncredited)
Written by Seymour Simons and Gerald Marks
Sung a cappella in part by Louise Beavers

User Reviews

First rate pre-code brilliance.

A terrific picture and new to me. I think I had heard of it, perhaps showing at a pre-code festival at the Film Forum here in New York. Maybe not. Anyway caught it by accident on TCM today and what a find. Early George Cukor "woman's picture" I guess and has to be one of the earliest (1932) Hollywood pix about Hollywood. Brilliant, witty script with lots of stuff which would've been censored after the Code went into effect a couple of yrs. later. Great performances by Constance Bennett and Lowell Sherman, both of whose work I had very little knowledge of. I had never even heard of Lowell Sherman and he is just amazing in the role of a director with a drinking problem. Oh and that's Gregory Ratoff as foreign-born producer. I think he reprised that role a few times, of course most notably as Max Fabian in All About Eve, which was on the tube over the weekend and is hard to tune away from once you start watching...and listening, like this was. I could go on--but just catch it if you can!