Main Cast: Leslie Howard, Joan Blondell, Humphrey Bogart, Alan Mowbray, Marla Shelton
Release Year: 1937
Country: US
Run Time: 91 minutes
Plot
Bookish bank employee Atterbury Dodd (Leslie Howard) is ordered to investigate the near-bankrupt Colossal Studios in Hollywood, to see if the firm is any sort of good risk. Dodd's first brush with Tinseltown's cuckoo atmosphere occurs when he takes a room in a boarding house for extras, where all manner of eccentrics wander about as they wait for the phone to ring (Charles Middleton comports himself in an Abe Lincoln costume, on the off-chance that Hollywood will go back to making Civil War pictures soon). He befriends Lester Plum (Joan Blondell), a former child star now working as a stand-in for haughty movie queen Thelma Cheri (Marla Shelton), and perpetually soused producer Douglas Quintain (Humphrey Bogart). Aware that the latest epic of autocratic director Koslofski (Alan Mowbray) will ruin the studio, Howard investigates further, discovering that a rival company has bribed Koslofski to pad the budget and thus bring about the foreclosure of Colossal. While his business sense tells him that this is the next logical move, Dodd has fallen in love with Plum; thus, he gives Quintain 48 hours to re-edit Koslofski's fiasco into something workable, and himself staves off the studio's shutdown by rallying all the Colossal employees to stand firm against being removed from the premises. Based on a Saturday Evening Post story by Clarence Buddington Kelland, this is a light-hearted satire of the movie industry, the sort of amiable farce in which everyone--even the most contentious of characters--is shown to be basically decent underneath. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Stand-In is a formulaic studio film from the 1930s that still manages to hold up well today due to some fine performances, some well-timed situational comedy, and a story that doesn't take itself too seriously. Leslie Howard plays Atterbury Dodd, an accountant sent west to Hollywood to turn around a failing movie studio or close it down. In the process he finds a girl for a love interest, a producer for a partner, and learns a deep, meaningful lesson about seeing through cold facts to people's hearts. It is a bit cheesy but still some good fun. Joan Blondell is Howard's main foil and she is very warm and likable. Character actor Alan Mowbray is also very good and very funny as a Russian director who has made a disastrous jungle epic that will be the studio's ruin unless Howard and his producer cohort, played by a scene-stealing Humphrey Bogart, can salvage it. Fans of Howard and Bogart will remember their pairing in the classic The Petrified Forest, and their chemistry works in this long over-looked film as well. Bogart, in particular, prior to his achieving true leading man status, seems almost unrecognizable in a supporting role. Blondell manages to generate some genuine pathos from her stock role, that of the girl who goes unrecognized by a single-minded man, and she does so without going over the top. The frustration Howard finds when he tries to conduct business in a normal manner, only to be told "That's Hollywood" wears a little but is still amusing. The most humorous aspect is the illustration of how Hollywood has always spoofed itself, dating back to its origins and continuing throughout its history. ~ Dan Friedman, All Movie Guide
Alexander Toluboff - Art Director, Wade B. Rubottom - Art Director, Helen Taylor - Costume Designer, Charles Kerr - First Assistant Director, Tay Garnett - Director, Otho Lovering - Editor, Dorothy Spencer - Editor, Heinz Roemheld - Composer (Music Score), Rox Rommel - Musical Direction/Supervision, Charles G. Clarke - Cinematographer, Walter Wanger - Producer, Gene Towne - Screenwriter, C. Graham Baker - Screenwriter, Clarence Budington Kelland - Short Story Author
