In 1927, with Al Jolson making a hit singing in the first musical film, what's in store for Jerry and May, a New York vaudeville team? Why, they'll sell their act and go to Hollywood to, as George says, "do something in movies." May hits on opening an elocution school for actors. On the Pullman to L.A. they (George, with Jerry and May, a perpetual unwed couple) meet Helen Hobart, the syndicated critic/columnist, who decides to go into business with them. Susan Walker, a movie-star wannabe, is on the train, captivating George.
Soon they're at the Stilton Hotel, which is a perpetual champagne party, built around people celebrating ever-changing types of movies turned out at Herman Glogauer Studios. Somehow George becomes a boy wonder of a director, and his partners enter a mad whirl that resembles those early madcap films, whenever the scene isn't an extravagant musical number with gilded chorus girls circling down gold or silver stairs.
There's little point in elaborating on the pointless plot except to say that the enterprise George directs is like a film predecessor of the show put on in "The Producers." That is, due to a mix-up with the script, it's not the right movie at all. But does that stand in the way of success? Who cares? The point is to see a panoply of costumes, color matched in each scene, and various crazy shoots with Ziegfield type musical numbers and overdone acting overseen by idiots. There are also grand old songs like "Toot, Toot, Tootsie."
The three leads could all be mistaken for Americans of the era and make themselves likeable, often despite the shenanigans.
Adrian Scarborough sometimes seems like a stand-in for Harold Lloyd. Victoria Hamilton, who may be the Judi Dench of the future, proves her versatility with screwball comedy and musical movement. Lloyd Hutchinson is a type one loves to dislike. The company altogether makes a fine ensemble. How they move, move, move! -- the better to entertain us. Just that, nothing more. Nothing more needed.
