Studio: Leon Schlesinger Productions (Merrie Melodies)
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Produced by: Leon Schlesinger
Short Synopsis
A night at Ciro's, the Hollywood nightclub, with the whole town caricatured at the tables. Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, Adolphe Menjou and Norma Shearer arrive; Greta Garbo, working as a cigarette girl, lights Cary Grant's cigarette on her enormous foot; Edward G. Robinson asks Ann Sheridan how the Oomph Girl is, and she answers "oomph" several times; seats are reserved for Bette Davis, for Kate Smith (an extra-wide sofa) and for the Blondie family, with a fire hydrant for the dog. Bing Crosby announces the floor show, James Stewart dances with Dorothy Lamour, the Three Stooges conga, and Clark Gable spends the whole film pursuing a mysterious woman who turns out, when he finally catches her, to be Groucho Marx. More than forty stars appear, with Leon Schlesinger and his assistant Henry Binder among them.
Why It Matters
- It is the best of the Hollywood-caricature cartoons, a form Avery loved: the likenesses are sharp, the gags come from the stars' public personas rather than their faces, and the Gable chase gives the parade a spine. Sally Rand's bubble dance, with Peter Lorre, Henry Fonda and Harpo Marx in the audience, is the centrepiece.
- The film survives only in its 1948 Blue Ribbon reissue, which cut several scenes and the original titles, so part of it is lost; what remains is a time capsule of 1941 celebrity, and it has circulated widely, which is why it is so often the Avery cartoon people have seen without knowing his name. Kent Rogers, who did most of the impressions, was killed in the war in 1944.
Notes and Trivia
- Ciro's on Sunset Boulevard had opened in 1940 and was the newest celebrity haunt when the film was made.
- Avery used the "it was Groucho all along" ending again in later cartoons.
- See also: Have You Got Any Castles? (1938), Book Revue (1946), Porky's Midnight Matinee (1941).
