The Age of Commercialism

Brilliant and touching

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

I watched this movie just to see Sidney Fox ( Sidney which was her REAL first name ( Lifer was the last), is one of the WORST first names for a woman in Motion Picture History ( Charlie Murphy might be the only name as bad)) in her final film is the only reason to watch this movie. Any scene without Fox is bad. Mary Boland as Queen of this Island and Sterling Holloway ( who has such a " Deer In The Headlights" look throughout the movie looks totally stoned) are particularly awful. I wonder if the creators of Gilligans Island saw this movie as an idea? Wealthy and average people ending up on an Island together? Even Gilligan who was pretty stupid in the Series is The Professor compared to the morons in this movie which was EVERYONE except ( Linda Colt-Stratton ( Fox) and Barry Forbes ( Sidney Blackmer) who spoilers ahead: Ends up with Linda). I can only hope that Charlie Murphy has a better career and fate then Sidney Fox who committed suicide at age 34. Needless to say that I despised this movie and give it zero stars. The best thing is Fox and the WORST thing is Fox? Why? She is the only one decent but without her I never would have watched this movie which belongs in the Top Ten All-Time WORST film list.

As noted in other comments for this film, this one starts out looking like a typical 1930s screwball comedy about high society but changes course quickly. The story takes several sharp left turns into becoming a musical farce set in a Polynesian island kingdom. Of particular delight is Mary Boland's shabby-glamorous queen and her manservant in tattered livery. The two romantic leads are undistinguished, particularly the male. But any film with Ned Sparks deserves some credit, and the musical numbers aren't as tedious as many others of the period were. It's a curious affair, made all the more startling by the film's rapid pacing, but I feel I must say that other comments make "Down To Their Last Yacht" sound like something from the avant-garde. In truth it's no more 'out there' than W.C. Fields' "Million Dollar Legs" or some of Wheeler & Woolsey's more absurdist work. Not a classic, but certainly worth watching if you come across it.

***SLIGHT SPOILERS***What a very, very strange movie. From the title and set up one would think that this would be a neat, depression era, class reversal, screwball comedy complete with the icon of that genre, Mary Boland. How wrong one would be.A once wealthy but now working family living in elegant poverty aboard their yacht are suddenly thrust into leasing their yacht and themselves for a cruise for some vulgar and possibly underworld connected nouveau rich by a decidedly sexually ambiguous Polly Moran. All right, that sounds like a comedy. Ned Sparks is hired as the captain and Sidney Blackmer has a very early outing as a romantic lead, a singing romantic lead, romancing Sidney Fox (certainly one of the few, possibly unique, screen romances between two stars named Sidney). There is some silliness about fixing the roulette wheel with the aid of Stirling Hollaway, a scam which is exposed to an angry shipload of people when the captain deliberately beaches the yacht on an Island and things get very funny, peculiarly funny, indeed.The island, which features a very good Hawaiian band, is ruled by a feather bedecked, quite mad Mary Boland, famous for murdering her husbands and is attended by a man in tattered formal wear. Ned Sparks proposes to take the passengers hostage, strip them of everything and split the loot with the Queen but she intends to take it all, after murdering, with the assistance of her Thompson machine gun toting natives, everyone. Instead she becomes enamored of Blackmer, who plays the whole picture in white tie, to whom she proposes he become her king. He convinces her to let everyone go back to civilization as a more fitting punishment. Unfortunately she has had a bomb planted on the yacht. Fortunately she switches her affections to saxophone playing Stirling Hayden, her next "King", and Blackmer is able to get everyone off the boat in time. The yacht explodes. Back on the island everyone pairs off and behaves in a decidedly pre-code manner and everyone is libidinously happy. The End.This film belongs to a group of surrealist films very characteristic of the late twenties and early thirties like MILLION DOLLAR LEGS and just about anything with W.C. Fields or the Marx Brothers. Avant Garde Europeans and South Americans were very taken by these films so their influence was mainly felt by such artists as Jean Epstein, Dali, Bunuel, Cocteau and the Magico-Realists. Oh, did I mention this was a musical?

A family of blue-bloods made destitute by the depression are scammed into leasing out their yacht and posing as crew to tacky "new money", one of whom is their former cook. The scam turns out to be a plot by the gruff captain (Ned Sparks, the Walter Matthau of his day) to shipwreck them on a desert island run by a madcap queen (Mary Boland) and escape with their money. Of course, things go afoul has the queen as plans of her own.Such is the basic plot of this pre-code comedy with a few musical numbers thrown in for good measure. It was the era of Astaire and Rogers at RKO, and in their other musicals, RKO attempted to give them the gloss of the popular dance team. This relatively short film (just over an hour) was a major disaster in its day according to "The Hollywood Musical", but seen today, it is fairly fun, campy, and a passable time-filler. There is nothing remarkable in the songs or numbers (except one production number, "South Sea Bolero"), and the romantic leads (Sidney Fox and Sidney Blackmer) are uninteresting. The character parts, however, add humor, especially Spark's grumpy ship's captain, Boland's dizzy queen, and Polly Moran's butch cruise director. Throw in Sterling Holloway (the voice of Winnie the Pooh), and you have enough humor to make this an adequate second feature.The comic moments (most notably Holloway's rigging of a roulette table) are enjoyable, but there is a somewhat disturbing portrayal of South Sea Islanders as lazy folks who do nothing but make love all day. There was plenty of eye-raising and "I can't believe they said that!" among my friends whom I watched this with, but just another example of what Hollywood "used" to be like. I view it as an interesting idea with tacky elements thrown in that make this film a product of its times.