Bottoms Up

Apart from the singing scenes, which I found a bit cheesy and felt was a slight downside of this movie, (and I don't care much for musical comedies in general), this one was very enjoyable. The story was good, the plot funny with some great lines "But if you're so smart, why did you make me lie down to tie my Bow Tie?... I used to be an undertaker's assistant!". Spencer Tracy was excellent but then again he's always great in whatever movie he appears in. His character was so sweet and charming and his self-sacrifice...Wow. The ending had me chocked up. I wasn't expecting that! An all around enjoyable old school entertainment.

...from Fox and director David Butler. Spencer Tracy stars as "Smoothie" King, a fast-talking hustler who discovers unknown singing sensation Wanda Gale (Pat Paterson). He and his shady partners Spud (Sid Silvers) and Limey (Herbert Mundin) take Wanda out west to Hollywood, where they manage to get her a movie contract under dubious circumstances. Look for Lynn Bari and Lucille Ball among the chorines.

This is Tracy's one and only musical, although he doesn't sing. His slick huckster role is routine work for him, and could have been as easily assayed by James Cagney or Lee Tracy. I was unfamiliar with Pat Paterson, although I found her likable and with a pleasant singing voice. She married Charles Boyer this same year, and they remained together for 44 years. As for the songs themselves, most of which are performed on the sets of other fictional movies, they aren't very memorable.

Penniless promoter "Smoothie" King (Spencer Tracy) and his ex-con sidekick Limey (Herbert Mundin) team up with a crooning newsboy (Sid Silvers) and a warbling beauty contestant (Pat Paterson) to try and crash Hollywood. They're all on their uppers and live together in an abandoned miniature golf course but thanks to some light-hearted impersonation, blackmail, and forgery, the girl becomes a star and it's back to the drawing board for the boys...

Spencer Tracy was on the way up and John Boles on the way down when they made this Fox musical chocked full of forgettable songs and lame comedy but the Tinseltown background and a romp through the Fox backlot manage to turn this threadbare musical into an amusing time-waster. Harmless Hollywood stereotypes abound (Boles as a "Norman Maine"-style matinée idol, Thelma Todd as a bitchy movie queen, and Harry Green as an "ethnic" studio head) but there's some very un-PC caricatures as well. The "Jewish jokes" consist of smoked salmon, Silvers' big nose, and Green's endless kvetching -and when Tracy gives Green a near heart attack, the movie mogul clutches his chest and cries, "Get me a cheap doctor!"

There's a tepid two-sided triangle between Boles, Paterson, and third wheel Tracy wasting time between tacky production numbers like "Turn On The Moon" and "Waitin' At The Gate For Katie" but pretty little Pat Paterson (looking a bit like fellow Brit Constance Cummings) proves no threat to Alice Faye, who was just beginning to make her mark in Fox musicals at the time. Pat probably didn't care as she'd soon become Mrs. Charles Boyer and retire from showbiz.

David Butler's "Bottoms Up" has a funny plot, with a group of con artists trying to get a starlet a shot at the big time. Unfortunately, the musical aspect weakens the movie. Without all that, the movie would've been a typical enjoyable screwball comedy from the era. It also doesn't help that a Canadian character talks like an upper-crust English person. Any US citizen who knows a Canuck knows that our northern neighbors don't talk like Maggie Smith.

Other than that, it's a fun movie. Specifically, it's a pre-code movie, so there are a couple of steamy scenes (steamy for 1934, that is). There are the common jabs at Hollywood (the jealous actress, the hard-drinking actor, and the neurotic producer), and an uncredited Lucille Ball appears during the Katie sequence.

A piece of trivia relevant to the present is that Suzanne Kaaren (the producer's secretary) later lived in a property owned by Donald Trump. Trump wanted to tear it down but Kaaren refused to leave, and a court eventually ruled that Trump had to leave it up.

The New York Times said `Bottoms Up is Tip-Top, in the form of the Once In A Life Time school of Hollywood kidding.' Spencer Tracy (Smoothie) in a Lee Tracy type role as a star promoter and his comic-relief sidekicks Herbert Mundin (Limey) and Sid Silvers (Spud) discover a perky beauty, Pat Paterson (later married to Charles Boyer) at a dime-store counter and decide to make her a movie star. John Boles is perfectly cast as an overrated actor who is bored and drinks too much. Tracy manipulates the shells until his little pearl is forcibly discovered by having his protégé pretend to be visiting royalty. Problems arise as this new starlet starts to fall her leading man and not Tracy. Sexy Thelma Todd and former silent film director and frequent Hal Roach star Del Henderson are featured in minor roles. Bottoms Up had some of the best quotes of the weekend as when a song hawker, fast-talking his list of titles for sale, ends the rigmarole with, `…and ‘I Surrender To You' for only ten cents.' Or later when Smoothie suggests to Spud that he see a plastic surgeon to help his career: `You can pick any nose you like.' To which Spud replies, `But I don't want to pick any body else's nose.' When asked, `Where do you wash around here?' and the answer comes back, `The spring.' The retort is, `I asked where, not when.' Thank god for film festivals like this one that make rare films like this available and the folks who provide comments to IMDB for others to share. Please support the IMDB and early film festivals!