Down to Their Last Yacht

After the 1929 market crash, the Colt-Stratton family falls from high society to the working poor. Their last major possession is a large luxury yacht where they live. They are forced to rent to the newly rich loud-mouthed Nella Fitzgerald for a gambling trip. The ship runs aground on the South Sea Island of Malakamokolu which is ruled by white Queen Malakamokalu (Mary Boland).

This is a weird little comedy musical adventure. I like the opening premise but it turns into a bit of mess with too many characters. I don't like the music generally although I can't hate that too much. This takes a weird abrupt turn in the middle. It's old Hollywood exoticism with some brown-faced acting and a white crazy Queen. The movie may as well start with the shipwreck and let its freak flag fly.

A shipload of supposedly rich and connected folks runs aground in a strange kingdom populated with Hawaiians and white folks who have been dyed dark which are led by a ditsy American white lady who wears evening wear and a tiara. Supposedly these are Zulus--but the film and the island where it's set have nothing to do with South Africans. One anachronism after another occurs in this 'primitive' land--including natives who pack Thomson machine guns! Most of what happens on the island is a lot of nonsense.

"Down to Their Last Yacht" is a very unusual musical comedy for many reasons. First, it has no stars to anchor the movie--just various supporting players who didn't have the charisma and range to helm the project. So, while Mary Boland, Ned Sparks and Polly Moran COULD have been funny (they all have had some nice roles in support in other film comedies), there they have no one to act against and they simply are out of their league. Second, for a comedy, it seems to have an amazingly small amount of laughs. While the situations could have been funny, nothing was done to exploit the humorous aspects of the plot. Third, the music...UGGHH! Not only are the songs poor, but the voices are dreadful--and very dated. Considering that IMDb says the movie needed retakes, I assume that even in 1934 it was pretty bad and the studio was trying, in vain, to salvage the project. It all makes you wonder WHAT the folks at RKO were thinking when they made this film!! A real clunker!

This RKO comedy was the last film that Sidney Fox did. 8 years later the tiny young actress was dead from overdosing on sleeping pills.

She went out on a weird movie with Down To Their Last Yacht. She's an heiress whose family only has its yacht left. It gets rented out to Polly Moran who is hosting a big cruise for those who made out OK and didn't lose their shirts in the Depression.

They are a crowd of boors as Captain Ned Sparks finds out. He's planning to rip them off until he runs the ship aground on an island where Mary Boland is queen.

If that ain't weird enough I can't help it. The film is funny but it has a surreal quality to it. I thought the ending would show it was Fox's dream. That wasn't it though.

Fans of some of the players will like this.

This 70 minute film made at huge expense at RK0 was their entry into the scatterbrain comedies of the early 30s like DUCK SOUP and MILLION DOLLAR LEGS. Madcap social anarchy mixed with silly kingdoms and sprinkled with songs. KING KELLY OF THE USA and HIPS HIPS HOORAY also fall into this format of two separate halves of a film making up the 60-70 minute running time. In this catastrophe comedy the first 30 minutes aboard the yacht of the title are quite terrific with two truly divine songs set in art deco splendor akin to an Astaire Rogers film: 'Funny little World' especially is worth listening (and watching) over and over. 'The little finger on your hand' is a lilting wistful song and equally memorable and well staged. However..... it all runs aground on some dirt puddle island and complete 'wackiness' takes over. The second half is simply terrible with the shipwrecked socialites living and working like natives while the Polynesians wear silks and top hats and get ordered around by a deranged 'queen' Mary Boland. The film completely falls apart, as if two completely different films were made and wedged together. However the production values are spectacular. I truly love the first half on the yacht. I truly gasp in sheer embarrassment at the second half. as one friend said to me after we lurched thru it: "you sure have shown me some silly films, but that was the silliest"............And not fun either. Apparently it cost half a million dollars in 1934... an epic disaster financially for such a support film.

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.