Hollywood Round-Up (1937)

Lack of good storyline.

Excellent but underrated film

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

This 54 minute western for Columbia pictures is a nice Buck Jones vehicle. Helen Twelvetrees plays an aging star Carol Stevens, who gets the chance for a comeback; but she is scheduled to be in a quickie western starring wild west hero Grant Drexel(Grant Withers). She isn't happy being in a "horse opry", but its work. Drexel is a major star that does not do his own riding and daring stunts. That job goes to Buck Kennedy(Jones). The two get into an argument over how Drexel is treating Stevens and it leads to Buck getting fired. The talented Buck, out of work, is fooled by a fake production company to film a bank robbery. The real bank robbery lands Kennedy in the pokie. Who will be the hero rescuing the real western hero?Also in the cast: Shemp Howard, Monte Collins, Eddie Kane and Dickie Jones.

One of three films made by Columbia circa 1936-37 based on behind-the-scenes film making with a "western" setting ("The Cowboy Star", "Hollywood Roundup" and "It Happened in Hollywood"), plus RKO weighed in the same year with George O'Brien's "Hollywood Cowboy." It had been done before, RKO's 1933 "Scarlet River", and would be done again, "Shooting High" from 20th Century-Fox and Republic's "Bells of Rosarita", among others with a western setting, but this Coronet production with Buck Jones may well be the best of the lot as it devotes more footage to actual film-making both on studio sets and locations. One out-of-the norm plot incident has the studio head Lew Wallace offering a job to a fading star Carol Stevens, with a semi-apology for casting her in what he calls an "outdoor special" and she calls a "horse opry", and this scene in a B-western leaves no doubt that the B-western and it people were near the bottom of Hollywood's pecking order. The stereotypes are there, with Shemp Howard's over-zealous "assistant director" (who does calm down and gets more real when he loses his whistle), the ego-ridden "star" in Grant Drexel, and the deserving-to-be-the-star relegated to stand-in and stunts Buck Kennedy, but the remaining crew and player roles are realistic (especially the real stuntmen playing stuntmen). Buck Kennedy is the stand-in and double for star Grant Drexel and is fired when he has a fight with the bullying Drexel over Drexel's treatment of leading lady Carol Stephens. The movie company is on location, and a group of gangsters led by Eddie Kane and Lester Dorr, posing as another movie company, come to the location town and talk the banker into letting them film a fake holdup in his bank, but the holdup is real and the out-of-work Buck, whom they hire as the fall guy to cover their getaway, is left holding the bag and jailed by town sheriff Slim Whitaker. Things get worse for Buck before they get better. A mid-point sequence has hotel clerk George R. Beranger, who dreams of being a western star, performing a twittering, ballet-slippering audition for the checking-in film company by quoting lines from a western and asking them to identify the film. Shemp Howard guesses "Little Women."

There is a rather strange scene early on in this picture.the character played by Helen Twelvetrees goes to see the studio boss initially to complain that she has not made a picture for the studio in over a year.In reality Twelvetrees only made this film in 1937.The boss then admits that she had had 4 box office failures in a row and therefore he wanted her to go into this western.In reality Twelvetrees was virtually at the end of her film career with only a couple more films to go.Bearing in mind of course that between 1929 and 1936 she had appeared in around 30 films.So one can only assume that someone at Columbia had a malicious sense of humour or was paying off for past insults.Based on her performance in this film it is difficult to understand why her star slipped so quickly.She would probably be completely unknown now if it weren't for her unusual surname.This is an entertaining film with the bonus of a behind the scenes look at how B Westerns were made in the 30s.Well worth a look.

Columbia seemed intent on making B-films about westerns being shot in Hollywood and the behind-the-scenes glimpses throughout the story that are supposed to be a point of interest.Trouble is the script offers nothing in the way of real entertainment. BUCK JONES is a cowboy doubling for big western star GRANT WITHERS, a conceited hunk of muscle in love with HELEN TWELVETREES. Despite a name that makes you blink, Twelvetrees is quite forgettable as an actress and the rest of the cast is sub-par in that department too.Little DICKIE JONES (he was the voice for "Pinocchio" in the Disney classic), plays a wannabee cowboy who helps get Buck Jones out of a jam when he's mistakenly thought to be part of a bank robbery. Everything is straightened out for the last reel, but by this time most viewers will find the whole tale mighty predictable. The bit with the airplane and the dramatic attempt to get the gangsters from flying off in their plane is about as far-fetched as anything else in the story.I reckon you can skip this one without missing anything.