Down to Their Last Yacht

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.