International House │ Universal Vault Series
Courtesy of Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
by CHAD KENNERK
Promoted as the “Grand Hotel of comedy”, 1933’s International House followed in the illustrious footsteps of recent Best Picture winner Grand Hotel by assembling an all-star cast at a large international hotel, including W.C. Fields, George Burns, Gracie Allen, Bela Lugosi and Sterling Holloway. A Pre-Code Paramount comedy in the style of The Big Broadcast of 1938 (also out now on Blu-ray from the Universal Vault), musical and vaudeville-style acts are strung together by a strand of plot so thin you could practically see through it. And that wasn’t the only thing you could see through. Cellophane and pasties were the only things standing between the audience and the ladies of the Busby Berkely-esque production number ‘She Was a China Tea-Cup and He Was Just a Mug’.
Set in Wuhu, China (an ongoing gag, as the pronunciation is ‘woo-hoo’), International House sees the convergence of eccentric characters all hoping to get a look at Dr Wong’s latest invention, the radioscope. Essentially an early version of the TV, the radioscope becomes another avenue to feature musical acts, such as Cab Calloway singing ‘Reefer Man’. Notorious Jazz Age gold digger Peggy Hopkins Joyce plays herself, arriving at the hotel to bag one of the wealthy clientele as her next husband.
Lyricist Leo Robin and composer Ralph Rainger (of ‘Thanks for the Memory’ fame) wrote three songs for the film, including the aforementioned ‘Teacup’ and numbers for cameo performances by Rudy Vallée and Baby Rose Marie. As Robin once noted, “In pictures you have to please the whole country and most of the world besides. The songs must have universal appeal and get down to something that every human being feels and can understand. That isn't so hard really, once you get the trick of simplicity.” Other behind the scenes talent included cinematographer Ernest Haller, who was nominated for the Oscar for Best Cinematography seven times – for Jezebel; All This, and Heaven Too; Mildred Pierce; The Flame and the Arrow; and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Lilies of the Field – winning once for Gone with the Wind.
In her autobiography Hold the Roses, Rose Marie (who grew up to become Sally Rogers on The Dick Van Dyke Show) recalled the audition that led to her feature debut. “We went to Paramount’s New York offices and were shown into one of the suites, which had been turned into a screening room and was also used for auditions. I sang ‘If I Only Had a Five-Cent Piece' (Enough to buy a cup of coffee…I’d drink water instead and go beggin’ for bread, cuz I’d give the nickel to you..) What a lyric! My mother was sitting in front of me, and I suddenly thought of all the crap she had taken from my father and how mean he was to her. While I was singing, I started crying – which made it only more dramatic. I was crying and loving my mother so much. The tears ran down my face and wouldn’t stop. I could have given Bernadette Peters lessons.”
Despite the dramatic audition, Paramount decided to add Baby Rose Marie as a featured act opposite the comedians of International House. “I thought ‘Great, back to Hollywood.’ Unfortunately, it was a one-day shoot on Long Island,” Rose Marie lamented. “The song I sang, ‘My Bluebird’s Singing the Blues,’ was written especially for me by Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger. They used two pianos on the set (with the orchestra in back, of course). Herbie Steiner was on one piano, and Ralph Rainger wanted to play the other piano. Ralph was thrilled with the way I sang. He said it was a hard song to sing, but he loved the way I sang it. I was so glad because I wasn’t feeling too well that day, and I wasn’t sure how I would sound. It must have been okay, because we did the scene in three takes and it was all over in about two and a half hours.”
Despite the flimsy plot designed to get a host of star acts to perform under one roof, as the legendary critic Leonard Maltin once declared, the film is indeed “short and sweet, a must-see". The print has some minor issues, but the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s 35mm preservation done in 2013 from an original nitrate studio print is a great upgrade from the W.C. Fields Comedy Collection. One bonus feature we wish were on the new Universal Vault Blu-ray is the newsreel about the 6.4-magnitude earthquake that struck a few miles offshore from Long Beach, California. While the effects were felt 30 miles north in Hollywood, the newsreel itself featured a staged hoax with an apparent take on the set of International House interrupted by the quake. The publicity stunt was concocted by director A. Edward Sutherland and Fields. "We shared a big laugh and an even bigger drink," Sutherland would later reveal. The earthquake itself, however, was no laughing matter, causing widespread major damage that led to around 120 fatalities.
International House is available on Blu-ray 21 April from the Universal Vault Series.
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