The Christmas Party (1931)
In this holiday short, Jackie Cooper wants to throw a Christmas party for his friends on his football team but doesn't know how to go about it. His fellow stars at MGM help him out.
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Undescribable Perfection
Pretty Good
Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay
Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.
1931 was quite a year for Jackie Cooper. He began it while still a member of Hal Roach's Rascals (a.k.a Our Gang) before then filming Skippy for his uncle Norman Taurog at Paramount. After that film's success, Roach then sold Cooper's contract to his distributor M-G-M so he could do features there starting with The Champ which was also a success. So that probably got the powers-that-be there to make a promotional short featuring their now-hot child star and surrounding him with many of the studio's other adult stars in a holiday greeting meant to wow the theatrical audience with all the celebs in the studio's roster at the time. What I saw was quite amusing if not hilarious with whoever I recognized turning up at Jackie's "party" like Clark Gable, and, oh, let's not forget Norma Shearer who seems to have an "in" with Mr. Mayer but then, she was married to his second-in-command, Irving Thalberg, at the time. So on that note, The Christmas Party is worth a look for anyone curious about these things.
MGM may have called itself the studio with "more stars than there are in heaven," but this little short with JACKIE COOPER as the centerpiece of attention as a child star, surrounded by the studio's impressive list of contract players, features a lot of "stars" that today's fans are totally unfamiliar with. That studio slogan was only appropriate when we talk of MGM during the '40s and '50s.Sure, people will recognize the lovely Norma Shearer, Clark Gable, Wallace Beery and Jimmy Durante, but are unlikely to know who's who when Anita Page, Reginald Denny, Marion Davies, Charlotte Greenwood and Polly Moran arrive for Cooper's studio birthday bash.Nevertheless, it's an amusing slice of film history and guaranteed to satisfy the nostalgic feeling a lot of us have for the pre-Golden Years at Metro.
Christmas Party, The (1931) *** (out of 4) Charles Reisner Jackie Cooper wants to throw his football team a Christmas party at his house but soon other teams learn of it and want to come as well. The house is too small for everyone so Cooper asks Mayer if he can have the party on one of the MGM lots. The actual story here isn't all that important but what is are all th A-list stars who make an appearance here. Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore, Anita Page, Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler, Marion Davies, Jimmy Durante (as Santa) and Norma Shearer are just a few of the stars that show up. If you know anything about Mayer you'd know that there's no way he'd really allow a party to take place on his set but I guess that's besides the point since the film itself is just trying to be charming and it does that. Mayer doesn't show up but there are plenty of others that make this a must see for fans of Hollywood's Golden Era.MGM Christmas Trailer (1937) *** (out of 4) A 15-year-old Judy Garland sings "Silent Night" in this very short (2-minutes) short from MGM. There's really nothing to judge here except the song and Garland does a great job with it. I'm sure something extra could have been added to plump up the running time but what's here is very good.
The studios had to keep the screens filled of all the theaters they owned, so the studio- related short was a staple of sorts. It had to fill time, be mildly entertaining, and somehow showcase or advertise the studio.The point was to remind the audience that MGM in this case had most of the stars, so coming to this particular theater every week was a good bet.This was a seasonal edition and it is interesting in a way. It "folds" the notion of stars serving the audience with the same stars graciously serving unruly kids. The idea is clever, especially for 1931 when the folding notion was so young.There's some mild entertainment value in seeing scenes that obviously were ad-libbed. Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.