A movie studio is losing money so they send stuffy accountant Leslie Howard out to Hollywood to find out why. There he meets an assortment of wacky characters and becomes involved in their stories. Great cast helps this satirical comedy rise above a script that tries a little too hard. Many of the characters have silly names like Fowler Pettypacker and Atterbury Dodd, so it's that kind of movie.Leslie Howard is great at playing the straight man to all those around him screwballing it up. Joan Blondell is fun as the former child star and now stand-in (hence the title) for fading movie star Marla Shelton. Humphrey Bogart is the producer in love with Shelton. Bogie is very good in one of the movie's more serious parts. No doubt he was happy to be taking a break from playing gangsters at the time. Alan Mowbray hams it up as a director with an indiscernible accent. Jack Carson is amusing as a loudmouth press agent. It's basically the standard Jack Carson role. My favorite performances are that of Tully Marshall as the wheelchair-bound grouse heading the studio and Marianne Edwards as Elvira, a little girl that was obviously a parody of Shirley Temple. Definitely worth a look if you're a fan of any of the actors involved or if you like movies that satirize filmmaking.

Tay Garnett had a flair for comedy, and he proves it again with this film, "Stand-In" from 1937, starring Leslie Howard, Joan Blondell, and Humphrey Bogart. Howard plays businesslike accountant Atterbury Dodd, who comes out to Hollywood to find out what the problem is with Collosal Studios, which the owner wants to sell. The studio isn't making money, and it should be. When Dodd gets out to LA, he meets stand in Lester Plum (Blondell), a former child star who falls for him. Of course, he's completely unaware of anything on a personal level and she is constantly thwarted. He's only in Hollywood to find out why the movie factory is losing money.Dodd learns that a director, Koslofski, is making a jungle movie, Sex and Satan starring a star on the wane, Thelma Cheri. Doug Quintain, who heads up the studio, is in love with her in spite of himself. It turns out there's not only amazing waste and pilfering going on at the studio, but a plot is afoot to make the studio lose money so it is ripe for purchase by an unscrupulous businessman who eats up small studios. This will put everyone at the studio out of work. Can Dodd save the day? Howard is great as Dodd, a man with few social skills and a mathematical mind. Blondell is adorable as Lester, who started life as a Shirley Temple wannabee and now is a stand in. Bogart gives his usual fine performance as the harried producer who has everything hanging on a film where the ape has proved to be more popular than the star.Very good movie. Tay Garnett did "Love is News," another delightful comedy, available on the Tyrone Power Matinée Idol Collection. In a tribute to Power in 2008, "Love is News" was the hit of the three-day tribute. Garnett's work is worth checking out.

Leslie Howard is one of that handful of actors whose name alone on the credits will get me to watch anything; but given the variety of other talent involved and the general recommendation I'd heard for the film, I have to admit I was left somewhat disappointed in this one.It's not that "Stand-In" is a bad picture, as such. It's amusing so far as it goes. But the entertainment seems an entirely surface one; I felt that somewhere it was missing the heart that would have made it a much better film, and that has for me provided more enjoyment from films more obviously flawed.A contemporary reviewer commented that Leslie Howard came across, despite valiant efforts, as ill at ease with physical slapstick better suited to a Harold Lloyd, and suggested he would have been more at home with a more verbal form of comedy; and this may be part of the problem. But I think for me the trouble was just a basic inability to engage with any of the characters on any level beyond the most superficial. Atterbury Dodd's significant trait is emptying ashtrays - for Douglas Quintain it is carrying around a small dog. Beyond this sort of character shorthand there is little depth to either of them: the film is a quick and cheerful satire on the studio set-up, but I didn't actually enjoy it as much as, say, "The Falcon in Hollywood". By the time we get to the stage at which the hero returns unexpectedly to find himself being lampooned, I felt the situation really ought to provoke a pang of partisanship rather than a mild titter.The role of Atterbury Dodd, the dry-as-dust bespectacled accountant who discovers sympathy for his fellow men and becomes an unlikely hero, is one that might have been typecast for Leslie Howard, and one that he could probably have sleepwalked through if necessary. However, he plays the part here gamely enough, somewhat hampered in the ultimate showdown by his convincing portrayal of a man who literally can't see straight: contrary to Hollywood convention, Dodd is genuinely dependent on his spectacles and cannot be magically transformed into an action hero by losing them. He delivers his big speech in golden-haired clean-cut Scarlet Pimpernel mode, but does it while effectively as blind as a bat -- a fine piece of acting on Howard's part, but the whole sudden conversion from number-pusher to philanthropist is not an entirely convincing character transformation. Likewise, Quintain's much-mentioned (and plot-necessary) love for the thoroughly obnoxious leading lady is stated, but never really credibly depicted. This is lightweight comedy, carried out more or less by-the-numbers.The other thing that puzzled me was my conviction that I'd seen certain isolated scenes of the film elsewhere, without having any recollection whatsoever of the plot! The scene where the dancing-lesson ends up with feet drawn all over the floor could easily be generic comedy (and in fact I'm now pretty sure I'd seen it in a silent short earlier this year), but that 'jungle woman' footage is very distinctive, and where I could have seen it before is more than I can guess. Perhaps some "100 Greatest Moments" compilation of spoofs and disasters? Joan Blondell makes a cheerful girl-next-door heroine, although I couldn't help being distracted into mentally calculating backwards and working out that her days as a winsome child singer must surely have been before the introduction of talking pictures -- a vaudeville act perhaps? (One side effect of seeing this picture at the National Film Theatre was that the overheard protest "I starred in that role in the silent era!" resulted in an audience murmur of sympathy instead of a laugh at the aging actress' expense...) Overall the film is an unobjectionable comedy. But it's not the overlooked gem of Humphrey Bogart's -- or Leslie Howard's -- career that I had somewhat rashly been given to expect, and it's not especially funny.

Worth it for the boarding house and its inmates alone, this is a glorious satire on '30s Hollywood. Leslie Howard is at his comic best (see also 'It's Love I'm After'), vague and unworldly. The supporting cast is excellent. Joan Blondell is gorgeous and *funny*. Humphrey Bogart, Howard's good mate and progege - Howard insisted that Bogart got the convict role in Petrified Forest in the film, having appreciated acting with him in the play, and that was his big break in films. And Bogart acknowledged the friendship by calling his first child Lesley (she was a girl). Alan Mowbray and Jack Conway also add to the fun.A sharp commentary on the wonderful world of B movies!