Hats Off (1936) User Reviews

A Cactus Musical

[ptb-8 · 5/10 · 20 March 2004]

Grand National, that very modern but mismanaged Hollywood mini major from just 1935-38, looked like they just might give Republic and Universal and Columbia a serious run for their place in the mid thirties. Lucky enough to score James Cagey for a few films: GREAT GUY and SOMETHING TO SING ABOUT, this funny lively well made musical ....a bit like WHOOPEE and pre-empting GIRL CRAZY showed they meant box office business in all forms of films..from tough guy pix to westerns and musical combos of both. HATS OFF is a modern day musical about publicity, a female reporter spying on a rival town's major business and manufacturing show... and falling for the architect played by a very young and handsome John Payne. It sort of loses the thread of the story about 2/3 of the way through but it is a very likable film with terrific sets and costumes especially in the nightclub musical scenes.

Sadly they went broke by overspending on their Cagney musical SOMETHING (above) and lost $800k. they never recovered and went out of the biz in 1939. Their studio became PRC. Had Grand National survived, they would have lasted well into the TV era and produced a lot of solidly made films. Check that logo! one of the best and most exciting ever on the front of any film!

Fuller Takes A Credit

[boblipton · 6/10 · 26 December 2018]

Two cities in Texas are fierce rivals. They are each producing expositions to boost themselves and hire publicity men. One is John Payne. The other is Mae Clarke -- well, they thought they were getting a man. Miss Clarke hires Franklin Pangborn to be "him" and goes to spy on Brennan under her own name.

It's not the missing Laurel & Hardy short. Instead it is, for Grand National, a big-budget musical, with Busby Berkley style production numbers. Besides Payne in his second movie credit and first leading role, it's notable for being Samuel Fuller's first screen credit as a writer.

Those two firsts and Luis Alberni aside -- he plays a big show producer -- this movie, while always engaging, substitutes bombast for wit. The performances are good: Miss Clarke acts the business woman by being business-like and straightforward; Mr. Payne is, surprisingly for him, a tenor, both in speaking and singing. Yes, it's a musical with John Payne and he sings, despite being a baritone in those musicals with Betty Grable.

Dallas and Fort Worth?

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 2 February 2014]

A couple of cities which sound an awful lot like Dallas and Fort Worth in real life take their rivalry quite seriously. Both are planning big expositions wanting to be chosen as the site of a planned World's Fair.

John Payne plays the organizer for the show of one of the cities and Mae Clarke is sent in to spy on him for the other. Of course the inevitable happens, need I go any farther.

The songs are provided by the team of Ben Oakland and Herbert Magdison and one of them, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star did enjoy some minor success during the time.

This was Payne's second feature film and first lead after being spotted in a minor role in Dodsworth. He'd have to wait for a few years before hitting the big time with 20th Century Fox.

Maybe this might have faired better at a major studio, but this was Grand National Pictures. As it is it's pleasant enough entertainment but nothing spectacular.

Watchable fluff

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 21 July 2007]

Two rival towns are vying to host some big exposition and so they both are putting their best feet forward to make a good impression by hiring publicity agents. John Payne works for one town and has planned a giant (and very silly) gala to introduce the town to the world. The oddest thing he arranged during this carnival-like festival was a championship boxing match--that was announced, in song, blow-by-blow, by a group of guys who sang the way you'd expect Huey, Dewey and Louie to if they had the job! The result was very surreal and strange to say the least. But even this and all the other hoopla wasn't enough for Payne, who decided to get Mr. Rosero (a big-shot Broadway producer) to put on a Busby Berkeley-style show. However, while all this is in the works, Payne's new girlfriend is actually also a publicity agent working for the other town--and planning on stealing some ideas of his and improving on others. To put it bluntly, she was a thieving weasel. Unfortunately for for evil schemes, she finds she's fallen in love with Payne and when it appears she has won, she surrenders and helps Payne clinch the contract.

An odd plot, huh? Well what's also odd is that this is a relatively low budget production that tries to be an "A-picture". However, because of budget constraints, the big musical numbers look very cramped on the sound stage and the choreography is a tad suspect....well actually, it stinks. To make matters worse for the viewers, for some insane reason, Helen Lynd was cast as a knock-off of Gracie Allen. Ms. Lynd sounds almost exactly like her, makes a lot of inane comments like her and sings and dances like Allen did in some of her films. I guess given the low budget, they couldn't afford the real Gracie Allen! So overall how is the picture? Well, to me it has way too many songs--especially since none of them are very good. Also, the singing announcers for the fight and Helen Lynd were very annoying and made the film, at times, tough to take. Still, Mae Clark and John Payne in the leads were pretty good and the film has a certain cheesy charm that make it tolerable--though certainly NOT especially good. After seeing this film, I can understand why it is in the public domain--no one would think to renew the copyright on this movie.

John Payne First Starring Movie - For John Payne Completists

[jayraskin1 · 5/10 · 8 February 2017]

I was wondering why John Payne looked like and acted like Jimmy Stewart in this movie. I think it was because 1936 was Stewart's break out year. He starred in four movies and had good parts in four more. His career was exploding. Somebody probably saw Payne and figured people would think he was Stewart. Payne never quite reached Stewart's level of super-stardom, but he seemed to have a greater acting range, playing tough guys as easily as sweetheart roles. Here, he is quite affable and charming. One wishes he had more screen time. This is also Sam Fuller's first screenplay. I am not that familiar with Fuller's corpus except for some of his major works - "The Big Red One," "Shock Corridor" "The Naked Kiss" and "Pick Up on South Street." This seems quite different from the other works that I've seen by him, much lighter in tone. Mae Clarke is dull and Helen Lynn does seem to be doing a Gracie Allen imitation. Only Luis Alberni as Rosero hits the right notes to brighten the film a bit. The other characters are not given enough screen time to make a solid impression. This is just passable and I think only John Payne fans would really be interested enough to watch the whole thing.

There were never such devoted cities....

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 21 July 2015]

Imagine with a World's Fair coming up that San Francisco and Oakland, Minneapolis and St. Paul, the two Kansas Cities, Los Angeles and Pasadena, and God forbid (!), New York and Newark ended up in competition, each deciding to have their own fair in spite of their friendly rival. That's the premise of this unbelievable but fun, light-hearted musical where one of the organizers of one fair (Mae Clarke) falls in love with one of the organizers of the other fair (John Payne) and pretends to be someone else so she can get the goods on what's going on at the other fair. Clarke (whose name is Jo Allen) hires Franklin Pangborn (!) (whose name is Joe Allen) to pretend to be her (!), then works on getting a big Broadway producer to present his newest show at her fair. Add in Helen Lynd as a Gracie Allen like Texas heiress who longs to be in show business. She gets the film's big musical number ("Little Odd Rhythm") while Clarke and Payne have a nice little romantic duet ("Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", no relation to the children's song). Coming from newly formed "B" studio Grand National, this is one of their more ambitious films, featuring several specialty acts (among them the Radio Rogues) and some fun character performances.

Wah-Oh.

[Spuzzlightyear · 6/10 · 26 April 2006]

This is a bit of an odd curio, in the fact that this is looks to be an attempted at a high-polished musical by a low rent studio. The Results are mixed here. Some of the songs are rather low rent.. I mean, the Twinkle Twinkle bit is nothing short of stupid, and the final number is just plain boring, but the boxing number and the bar sequence are fun, though implausible (How can a boxing match be commentated by a sextet?) The story is screams 1930s, about dueling fairs in nearby cities, and their attempts to outdo each other. John Payne and Mae Clarke play the publicists of the two fairs, and they try to outdo each other, and try to hire the famous show creator Bosero. Naturally, skulduggery follows. Mae Clarke is okay I suppose, and John Payne plays his Jimmy Stewart imitation quite well, What somewhat fails them is the potholes in the script, like there are incredible leaps in comprehension, how exactly was the Texas tycoon convinced to go to the bar in the first place? Who exactly was Bosero putting the show on for? And since the lead singer / dancer quit, well, what happened then? This is a movie that you really, REALLY have to squint in order to enjoy, and just keep a loose head as possible, because if you think to much about the comprehensiveness of this, your head will explode.

The USA that we enjoy seeing and admiring

[mccrohan · 8/10 · 27 April 2006]

I can only hope that there are still Americans like those in this film in today,s USA. The movie gives us one hour of light popular musical enjoyment. John Payne as usual presents a very likable and professional acting performance. Mae Clarke is pretty and charming and I have fond memories of her in other films. Franklin Pangborne contributes his unique comedy talents. It is good to visit a past era when fine human qualities of USA life were presented to the world via the Movies and universally admired.. Of course, much that was unpleasant was rarely shown but at least we can take a break from the worries of modern life and just relax and enjoy one hour of escape.

For those of us who like satires, this movie is a "must-see"!

[JohnHowardReid · 9/10 · 5 September 2014]

The pleasure of watching and listening to this fast-moving, wittily scripted, lavishly produced and most engagingly acted and directed movie is considerably enhanced by the superb tinted print presented on an Alpha DVD disc that also includes the lesser "B" entry, "Rich Relations". The tinting gives the aptly named "Hats Off" just the right surreal quality. It's a fun picture, but the satirical plot and the various rogue circus "acts" shouldn't be taken too seriously. Needless to say, the movie lost money for Grand National which was attempting to enter the big time at this stage and had even signed up Jimmy Cagney. Cagney, of course, is not in this movie, but it's a sad fact that nearly every time classic Hollywood attempted something new, novel and/or bizarre, picturegoers rebelled. So if you are in no mood for fantasy or exaggerated takes on such subjects as the boundaries of publicity and the role of advertising, this is not a movie you will enjoy.

All the players in "Hats Off" are in fine form, particularly John Payne and Mae Clarke as the two leads, Luis Alberni as the nutty Rosero, Helen Lynd as the aptly named "Ginger", Skeets Gallagher as Buzz Morton, and Franklin Pangborn as the money-bought front for Miss Clarke.

All in all, I found this movie most entertaining. The only thing I didn't like about it was the customary Hollywood conclusion. But by "B" standards, the movie is very lavishly produced and the direction by Boris Petroff is so deft, one wonders why he failed to achieve a solid Hollywood career. This was his first film as a director and first film as a producer. His only previous Hollywood credit was for staging the song numbers in "Fatal Lady" earlier in 1936. He then disappeared from Hollywood until 1949 when he produced "Arctic Fury". He then produced and/or directed a few films under the pseudonym Brooke L. Peters. Amazing! A great talent wasted or maybe circumstances just hit all the right notes in "Hat's Off" – a must-see movie not only for musical comedy fans but for all who enjoy Hollywood's product at its most satirical and unconventional!