The banking concern of Pettypacker and Sons is about to sell their interest in Colossal Film Studios, until accountant extraordinaire Atterbury Dodd (Leslie Howard) points out that the five million dollar deal is worth at least twice that much. Standing up to the senior Pettypacker, Dodd offers to head to Hollywood to head up his own internal investigation of the studio.
The characters Dodd meets in tinsel town are more like caricatures than real people. There's the blustering movie director Koslofski (Alan Mowbray), the alcoholic producer Quintain (Humphrey Bogart), the annoying publicist Potts (Jack Carson), and the prima donna of all time Thelma Cheri (Marla Shelton). Even Dodd himself is the consummate number cruncher, reducing meaningful personal relationships to "cogs" and "units". The only real heart and soul person that Dodd discovers is the delightful former child star Lester Plum (Joan Blondell), reduced to stand in roles that earn her a meager forty dollars a week when she can get the work.
The film has a lot of bizarre scenes that produce double takes, such as the Shirley Temple wanna be that performs on the spot auditions, and the seal and penguin act that share a room in the boarding house where Miss Plum resides. Blondell's character earns Dodd's interest when she uses a judo flip to throw him on his keester; that move will be repeated more than once as the film progresses.
At the center of Dodd's investigation is the production of a guaranteed to flop movie that will put Colossal over the financial edge and insure a bargain basement sale to big shot businessman Ivor Nassau (C. Henry Gordon), who will then lay off virtually the entire studio. The name of the film, and you better sit tight, is "Sex and Satan" - it's a jungle movie! With lines like "Goodbye little jungle goddess", the movie is guaranteed to be dead out of the water. Making lemonade out of this lemon will take some doing, but Dodd puts on his best human face and organizes the masses for a final rally to save the day. And all of this after being fired by Pettypacker!
I would probably never have seen this film had I not been such a loyal Humphrey Bogart fan. Though he's third billed behind Howard and Blondell, his screen time is nominal, alternating between one of the studio heavies and his later conversion to a Dodd ally. It's a rare comic role for Bogey in which he appears somewhat uncomfortable, but ultimately satisfying once he decides to ditch gold digger Thelma Cheri and edit a gorilla into her jungle scenes.
The movie closes on the hint of a romance between Dodd and Miss Plum, just about when she's run out of options and hope of pinning him down. Fortunately the number cruncher decides to have a heart, as unlikely as that may have seemed at the outset. It's a well deserved finale for Joan Blondell's character, her good natured warmth and sincerity deserved to win out in the end.
The characters Dodd meets in tinsel town are more like caricatures than real people. There's the blustering movie director Koslofski (Alan Mowbray), the alcoholic producer Quintain (Humphrey Bogart), the annoying publicist Potts (Jack Carson), and the prima donna of all time Thelma Cheri (Marla Shelton). Even Dodd himself is the consummate number cruncher, reducing meaningful personal relationships to "cogs" and "units". The only real heart and soul person that Dodd discovers is the delightful former child star Lester Plum (Joan Blondell), reduced to stand in roles that earn her a meager forty dollars a week when she can get the work.
The film has a lot of bizarre scenes that produce double takes, such as the Shirley Temple wanna be that performs on the spot auditions, and the seal and penguin act that share a room in the boarding house where Miss Plum resides. Blondell's character earns Dodd's interest when she uses a judo flip to throw him on his keester; that move will be repeated more than once as the film progresses.
At the center of Dodd's investigation is the production of a guaranteed to flop movie that will put Colossal over the financial edge and insure a bargain basement sale to big shot businessman Ivor Nassau (C. Henry Gordon), who will then lay off virtually the entire studio. The name of the film, and you better sit tight, is "Sex and Satan" - it's a jungle movie! With lines like "Goodbye little jungle goddess", the movie is guaranteed to be dead out of the water. Making lemonade out of this lemon will take some doing, but Dodd puts on his best human face and organizes the masses for a final rally to save the day. And all of this after being fired by Pettypacker!
I would probably never have seen this film had I not been such a loyal Humphrey Bogart fan. Though he's third billed behind Howard and Blondell, his screen time is nominal, alternating between one of the studio heavies and his later conversion to a Dodd ally. It's a rare comic role for Bogey in which he appears somewhat uncomfortable, but ultimately satisfying once he decides to ditch gold digger Thelma Cheri and edit a gorilla into her jungle scenes.
The movie closes on the hint of a romance between Dodd and Miss Plum, just about when she's run out of options and hope of pinning him down. Fortunately the number cruncher decides to have a heart, as unlikely as that may have seemed at the outset. It's a well deserved finale for Joan Blondell's character, her good natured warmth and sincerity deserved to win out in the end.