Hollywood And Vine

2783. HOLLYWOOD and VINE (1945-USA). With JIMMY (JAMES) ELLISON, WANDA
McKAY, FRANKLYN PANG BORN, RALPH MORGAN, DAISY. M.M Barkley is a respected financial wizard who even has a skyscraper named in his honor. He is informed that he has just lost $900,000 in the stock market. His response is to say “take it out of petty cash.” To Barkley, another million earned or lost is just another day at the office. The irony is that Barkley looks like anything but a mover-and-shaker. He is a short and funny- fooking fellow who seems more incompetent than ingenious. This amusing romantic comedy starts as he begins his story. It all started when he was a self-described “prominent restaurant owner.” Actually, this mogul-to-be was the proprietor of Pop’s Place, a hamburger joint on the outskirts of Hollywood. His story involves Martha, a pretty and positive-thinking young woman from the hinterlands, who finds herself al this counter while on the last leg of her trip lo Tinseltown. Her dream is to find stardom in the movies, but the odds are that she is “just another kid looking for fame who will end up with a broken heart.” Martha is soon joined by a stranger. He is Larry, also newly arrived in California. Larry is enamored of Martha, but she gives him the old brush-off. Little does Martha know that this masher is none other than a famous New York writer just hired to write scripts for Lavish Studios, starting with a script about the “real Hollywood.” As he goes incognito to do research he bumps into Martha, whose job-hunting has been less than fruitful. The film also works as an inventive satire of Hollywood types, from egocentric directors to autocratic studio heads to vain movie stars. The cast includes a pair of proven scene-stealers: character comedian Franklyn Pangborn, playing an ever-flustered soda fountain overseer; and Daisy, who is without doubt lhe cutest and brightest pooch this side of Asta, and who is destined to play a key role in this story. 58 minutes Comedy