In the musical "Going Hollywood," Marion Davies plays a starry-eyed girls-school teacher who, after listening to Bing Crosby's crooning over the radio, follows him to Hollywood--essentially becoming his stalker. This is a silly premise, especially given that Davies was an established Hollywood star since the silent-film era, and Bing Crosby was just beginning his career there. Through much of the picture, Davies gives a stilted performance complete with dead-eye stares, which seems appropriate to the stalker role, but the rest of the film, unfortunately, plays out as a generic ingénue-turned-star romance, with neither star fitting the bill.
With a threadbare plot, "Going Hollywood" spends much of its time on Crosby's singing. His belting out "Beautiful Girl" in his apartment after just awakening and while getting dressed is a nice summation of Crosby's intimate and relaxed appeal in an era when radio and the microphone were emerging technologies. Davies is mostly relegated to the sidelines during these show-stopping numbers. An extended musical dream sequence including her and Crosby on a farm and the Three Radio Rogues interlude especially go nowhere. The multiple-exposure montages, including a triangular triptych upon entering Hollywood, showing archival footage of the likes of Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery and Marie Dresser, aren't very visually arresting, either. Worse still are the racist stereotypes of the volatile French "other" woman, who repeatedly slaps Davies for trying to steal her man and, surely in a career low, Davies disguised in blackface in one scene to continue her stalking of Crosby.
Despite its title and self-referentially being a musical about making a musical, "Going Hollywood" is of the style of radio and theatre. It would've benefited from the cinematic vocabulary of the dance choreography by the likes of Busby Berkeley. The narrative, too, would've benefited from a greater self-reflexive awareness, such as is evident in an earlier Marion Davies film about film, "Show People" (1928).
With a threadbare plot, "Going Hollywood" spends much of its time on Crosby's singing. His belting out "Beautiful Girl" in his apartment after just awakening and while getting dressed is a nice summation of Crosby's intimate and relaxed appeal in an era when radio and the microphone were emerging technologies. Davies is mostly relegated to the sidelines during these show-stopping numbers. An extended musical dream sequence including her and Crosby on a farm and the Three Radio Rogues interlude especially go nowhere. The multiple-exposure montages, including a triangular triptych upon entering Hollywood, showing archival footage of the likes of Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery and Marie Dresser, aren't very visually arresting, either. Worse still are the racist stereotypes of the volatile French "other" woman, who repeatedly slaps Davies for trying to steal her man and, surely in a career low, Davies disguised in blackface in one scene to continue her stalking of Crosby.
Despite its title and self-referentially being a musical about making a musical, "Going Hollywood" is of the style of radio and theatre. It would've benefited from the cinematic vocabulary of the dance choreography by the likes of Busby Berkeley. The narrative, too, would've benefited from a greater self-reflexive awareness, such as is evident in an earlier Marion Davies film about film, "Show People" (1928).