Hotel a la Swing (1937) User Reviews

Simple, Hilarious, and Fun

[davidtinker-2 · 6/10 · 24 February 2007]

A great pick-up on the Swing dance craze of the late 1930s. This simple, short musical comedy was a delightful surprise to find. It was available as a "Special Feature" on my DVD copy of "Swing Time".

The premise of this, as with many musicals, is secondary to the music. Here is the premise: a group of theater performers have lost their work and can't pay their hotel bill. They offer to take responsibility for the hotel for 90 days in exchange for their back rent. They plan to change things at the hotel by adding a "Swing" tone to the service and entertainment. Watch it till the end for the delightfully hilarious ending.

From beginning to end of this short were numerous whimsical numbers by the ensemble cast. I especially enjoyed the male trio who performed two numbers, one as famous detectives, and one as hotel kitchen chefs. The "Holiday in Hades" number was an interesting surprise for films of this era.

Nice little feature

[jim_of_oz · 7/10 · 23 February 2017]

I liked it. It had some snappy tunes and good singing and dancing. The story line was meh, but that wasn't important. The Hades spot singer did a good job and the female in the dancing duo had a very energetic dance routine.

One odd thing though, and a little disconcerting, was the singers' tendency to looks off camera when starring. The singers at the switchboard did it--only the center singer seemed to consistently perform to the camera. The singing cooks did the same. I don't know if it was the style back then, but you wondered where they were looking.

Happy Holidays from all of us here in Hades

[charlytully · 6/10 · 14 June 2009]

Often a viewer needs to sit through almost two hours of uninvolving material to glimpse a landmark musical number from a dated movie of long ago (especially if they don't have access to the "fast forward" and "search" functions). Well, HOTEL A LA SWING is an exception, as you can see Marcia Wayne and her ensemble perform that Cliff Hess and Mann Curtis standard, "Holiday in Hades," PLUS the rest of the film in a mere 21 and a half minutes. (If you don't have the patience for that, use "search" to set the d.v.d. at the 11:30 mark.) All of this brief farce is as funny as the average Marx Brothers effort (gadzooks! did he really mean that?! yes), but "Holiday in Hades" has the added attraction of being the perfect song for the previous administration here, especially with its introductory references to "evil-doers."

Interesting Looking Monster

[Michael_Elliott · 23 May 2012]

Hotel a la Swing (1937)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Mildly entertaining two-reeler from Warner has a traveling music show losing their job so when they can't pay the hotel tab they make a deal to work it off. The musicians bring swing music to the joint and soon enough people are coming from all around to check out the acts. Someone should really do a documentary on director Roy Mack and the other men who were pumping out these musical two-reelers throughout the decade because I'm sure it could be quite entertaining. This is one of countless shorts that was made with very little interest in an actual story and instead everything was thrown into the musical numbers. This one here includes a very interesting one called Holiday in Hades, which is performed by Marcia Wayne. This is a piece set in Hell with devils doing a dance but the interesting thing is that at the back of the set are a couple images of a monster and it certainly looks like the creature from I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN. That low-budget horror movie wouldn't come for nearly two more decades but the two monsters look so close to one another you wonder if someone hadn't seen this short as a child. Either way, this film here really isn't all that memorable outside this one number as the rest are rather clichéd and the music just isn't all that memorable.

A lot of singing and dancing in tho short!

[Sylviastel · 7/10 · 13 June 2019]

The film was probably aired before the main film presentation. This short film included some memorable dance and singing features about an unforgettable hotel. It's campy to today's standards. This film appeared on "Swing Time" DVD. It's a fine short and somewhat memorable.

Cool hotel

[AAdaSC · 6/10 · 13 August 2022]

A performing arts troupe can't afford to pay the hotel bill and try to sneak out behind the manager's back. Literally! Ha ha - they all come down the stairs at the same time trying not to be noticed. Well, they get busted ("We all have a sinus problem - nobody will sign us"). Their leader, Eddie Foy Jr (Reed), agrees to run the hotel for 90 days and get customers in by updating the hotel into a 'Swing Hotel'.

The film is an excuse to string together several musical set pieces and they are all entertaining apart from a very tiresome male 3-some who get 2 slots. They perform (!) a detective song that is meant to be funny but isn't and goes on way too long, but their cook routine has some redemption in that we get some tap dancing and they were clearly the influence for the Swedish chef ("urdi birdi boom boom") on the Muppets in the way they toss around their ingredients.

The other performers all put in memorable performances from the tap-dancing elevator girl to the roof top dinner entertainment - "Holiday in Hades" and the mystical, strange tall woman section. I wish all hotels were like this. Shame it ends so suddenly.

The basic plot of HOTEL A LA SWING is . . .

[oscaralbert · 7/10 · 19 December 2016]

. . . that a show business money guy falls asleep in the 1930s and wakes up in Trump Tower, Early 21st Century, for a "Holiday in Hades." The slogan for Trump's "Hell Cafe" is "The World's smallest steaks." Diners' entertainment options there and throughout the complex vary widely. Since Trump has reserved a "Honeymoon Suite" taking up the entire 67th Floor for his own personal use during the filming of his Eight-Time Emmy-Winning "First Lady Apprentice" Reality Show, there are as many as twenty nubile Eastern European First Lady Candidates tap-dancing for their Green Cards on the marble Grand Staircase at any given moment. For those desiring some beefcake, mostly-undressed Chippendale-like KGB studs strut Hell Cafe's dance floor showing off their Vlad Putin-style Hammer & Sickle Tattoos. There's even a branch of Trump University right inside Trump Tower, where U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' hand-picked faculty teach For-Profit "Charter School" owners The Art of the Steal from the USA's taxpayers and k - 12 school kids. These mercenaries in suits play musical chairs with fake Trump Tower deeds throughout HOTEL A LA SWINDLE, learning how to hide their failing schools from a greatly diminished regulatory force and fix their books so that they never have to pay any taxes, just like the Great Trump Himself.