Hollywood Boulevard (1936)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Director:

Robert Florey

Writers:

Marguerite Roberts (writer)
Faith Thomas (story)

Release Date:

21 August 1936 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot Keywords:

Remake

Cast

John Halliday	...	John Blakeford
Marsha Hunt	...	Patricia Blakeford
Robert Cummings	...	Jay Wallace
C. Henry Gordon	...	Jordan Winslow
Esther Ralston	...	Flora Moore
Esther Dale	...	Martha
Frieda Inescort	...	Alice Winslow
Albert Conti	...	Dr. Sanford
Thomas E. Jackson	...	Detective
Oscar Apfel	...	Dr. Inslow
Purnell Pratt	...	Mr. Steinman
Irving Bacon	...	Gus (the bartender)
Richard Powell	...	Pete Moran
Rita La Roy	...	Nella
Francis X. Bushman	...	Director, desert scene

Runtime:

75 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)

Filming Locations:

Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since.

Movie Connections:

Remake of The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra (1928)

Shades of Paramount's Later Sunset Boulevard

Florey's original cut ran 83 minutes, which I'll agree was too long to hold audience interest in a central story that, although strongly plotted, was weighed down with an inconsequential subsidiary romance featuring an overly verbose and mindlessly self-centered young hero. The shears were desperately needed, but instead of taking them to the youthful egotist, the main story was trimmed instead, throwing the whole movie way off balance. This was bad enough. But worse still was the fact that the repulsive know-it-all who delivers every single line of his wearisome dialogue with such over-the-top enthusiasm, was enacted by the overbearing Robert Cummings, whose non-stop self-adulation even manages to shade his beautiful co-star, Marsha Hunt. Florey's direction was slack in this respect, but fortunately, John Halliday and a fascinating line-up of support players, including Frieda Inescort, Maurice Costello and Gary Cooper, do their utmost to re-focus audience attention. They are helped immeasurably by the superb cinematography of Karl Struss. The Hollywood street scenes and other location cameos like the series introducing Marsha Hunt holding flowers are often breath-taking.