Young and Beautiful (1934)

Waste of time

Great Film overall

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is one of those hodge-podge efforts that makes you wonder if it was planned so much as grew. The main plot concerns movie publicity man William Haines -- he appeared for two movies for Mascot this year, for no clear reason -- who promotes girlfriend Judith Allen into a star, but she leaves him over the constant work and pointless publicity stunts. This state of affairs is interrupted by some musical numbers. In the first, the WAMPAS babies get to dance with men in masks representing then-hot stars, and in the second, Shaw and Lee (yay!) wander by with a piano and Ted Weems' old vocalist sits down and kicks over a chorus show. This soon vanishes to resume the story.Perhaps this movie was begun before the Production Code bore down and the interludes were added to bring it up to Feature length. The individual bits are pretty good, although the line readings are a bit weak.

There's two fantastic production numbers that come out of nowhere in this poverty row romantic comedy that features the Wampas Baby Stars, a beauty pageant of young hopefuls, none of whom here went onto anything outside of some minor parts. The first production number has the Wampas beauties being escorted by masked look-alikes of stars of the time: Laurel and Hardy, Clark Gable, George Arliss, Joe E. Brown, Buster Keaton, Maurice Chevalier, and yes, even Eddie Cantor who originated the song "Keep Young and Beautiful" in the Samuel Goldwyn musical epic, "Roman Scandals", the previous year. Three years before "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody" in "The Great Ziegfeld" and 36 years before Sondheim had his own salute to those "Beautiful Girls" in "Follies", this Mascot film saluted what Broadway and Hollywood were striving for in keeping the public entertained during the depression. For a film studio that never rose above the low B's, Mascot had its share of glamorous looking programmers, even though it focused on quickly filmed action films and mysteries.Having just finished up his long term contract at MGM, William Haines ended his career with two B films on Poverty Row, but in this one, he's still at the top of his form as the sneaky Robert Preston (!), a Hollywood publicity man out to find the next greatest female star. Like the real Robert Preston's Harold Hill of "The Music Man", Haines isn't above using a little bit of chicanery in getting what he wants, and what he wants is rising star beauty Judith Allen who is both amused and turned off by his antics. Tired of his sneaky antics, Allen turns to aging millionaire John Miljan whom she intends to marry for his money. Haines uses all his resources to get her back, and this leads to a very amusing finale where he cons her again, reminding me of the type of hijinks that fellow 30's fast talking actor Lee Tracy would get up to regularly. A second musical number, set on the studio streets, has an impromptu group of Wampas Baby Stars and some masculine crew men doing the same type of dance steps and is quite funny. Prints of this vary in length, the one I saw obviously a cut TV broadcast version, missing about 14 minutes. In smaller roles,Joseph Cawthorn and Vince Barnett give amusing performances. I would rank this high among poverty row films, one which I'd like to see fully restored. But what remains in its edited form is still worth seeing, surprising when you look at the history of the B-Z grade studios that tossed out movies on a weekly basis at the same rate as the people who went to see them were tossing out their weekly garbage. Some of those films are indeed garbage, but on occasion, a gem popped out, and this one is very close to being a gem.

The Wampas Baby Stars were created in 1923 in which 13 new actresses were chosen "who during the past year have shown the most talent and promise for eventual stardom". The first ceremony was almost akin to the Oscars - Bebe Daniels sang and Buster Keaton, Wallace Reed, Nazimova and Jackie Coogan appeared. In the beginning a lot of the stars really made good and exceeded all of the expectations (Colleen Moore, Evelyn Brent, Laura La Plante, Clara Bow, Dorothy Mackaill) but by the early thirties (1931 being an exceptional year with Joan Blondell, Frances Dee, Sidney Fox etc, in fact the majority became stars) with the depression and hard times forcing economy, the contest came to an end. No Wampas Babies were chosen in 1933 but in 1934 Paramount and Mascot created films in which the "babies" were to appear - Paramount's was "Kiss and Make Up" and Mascot's was "Young and Beautiful". By the time William Haines made "Young and Beautiful" he was established as one of the best interior designers in Hollywood and his heart just wasn't in movies anymore. He was still playing the wise cracker go getter.Bob Preston (Haines) is a publicity agent for Superba Pictures and his latest stunt is a doozy - June Dale (Judith Allen) has been kidnapped!!! of course she turns up but she is getting pretty fed up with all the silly stunts. Ted Fio Rita is on hand with his band to provide the proceedings with some catchy dance music. Bob is trying his hardest to get June a Hollywood contract - but someone else is very interested in her as well. It's John Miljan - so there may be some underhanded tricks along the way!! There is a very snappy musical number - I didn't catch the title but given as good a production as Mascot could give. Girls dance on tables, on a piano, even a painting comes to life!! everyone gets in on the act.Wampas baby Katherine Williams is the only girl who stands out with her dreams of serious roles conflicting with the reality of cheesecake and publicity. When she finally gets her chance, nerves get the better of her and it ends tragically. Funnily enough, Judith Allen was not a Wampas Baby and she should have become a star. She started out in a Cecil B. DeMille movie "This Day and Age' and starred opposite Bing Crosby in "Too Much Harmony", she also played in "The Witching Hour" and with Shirley Temple in "Bright Eyes" but she finished up in westerns and quickies. Stardom can be fickle. 1934 was a lean year for Wampas Babies - the only two that made a mark were Jacqueline Welles (who didn't appear in this movie) who continued on through the 1940s as Julie Bishop, and Lucille Lund, who appeared as Bela Lugosi's wife in "The Black Cat" (Welles had the female lead) and played the villainous "Duchess" in the serial "Blake of Scotland Yard" (1937).

In film mythology it is usually assumed that William Haines' final films, made for the little known Mascot Pictures, were low quality disasters. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that this movie is actually a very enjoyable comic romp through the back-lots of Hollywood. Sure, it's no masterpiece, but it is a lot of fun.Haines, looking great, gives his usual exhaustingly energetic performance as a high-powered Hollywood publicist. One can only speculate on how much he may have enjoyed the scene where he tells off a pompous studio head, just a year after his famous fight with Louis B. Mayer. The studio head though seems to have been based more on Carl Laemmle than Mayer - and Joseph Cawthorn does a fine job in the role (he looks remarkably like Laemmle too).There is some fairly unfunny comic routines from a couple of piano-movers that could have been cut, but the dance routines are pretty good - one involving some excellent caricatured masks of famous movie stars. Lots of pretty starlets, a fast-paced plot, and the glorious William Haines - what more could you ask for?