Bottoms Up
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
David Butler
Spencer Tracy
"pat" Paterson
John Boles
Sid Silvers
Herbert Mundin
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Outside the Hollywood premiere of the new Hal Reed film, conmen Smoothie and Limey, newly arrived from San Francisco, meet their old acquaintance Spud hawking music scores and invite themselves to stay with him. At a cafe, Smoothie meets Wanda Gale, who came to Hollywood after winning a personality contest in Toronto, but as yet has only been an extra in two films. After convincing her to room with them, Smoothie devises a scheme to make Wanda a star by spreading a rumor that her father, whom Limey will impersonate, is Lord Brocklehurst. After Hal's leading lady, Judith Marlowe, throws a party for the Brocklehursts, Wanda, enamored of Hal, who has become a heavy drinker and cynic, accompanies him home and prepares buttermilk for him before he passes out. When Limey sends an anonymous note to studio head Louis Wolf stating that Hal took Wanda to his apartment, Wolf, to keep the Brocklehursts happy, offers her a small part in Hal's latest film and orders Hal, who remembers little of the evening, to wine and dine her. After Limey forges a note from Wolf ordering an important role for Wanda, her romance with Hal thrives, and he confesses his love. When the ruse is discovered, Marlowe tells Wanda that Hal's romantic interest was only an act to protect the studio. Devastated, Wanda tells Smoothie, who himself has fallen in love with her despite his stance that he is not the marrying kind. Smoothie interrogates Hal and, after learning that he sincerely wants to marry Wanda, arranges a reconciliation and tells her that he is leaving the city for bigger things. At the film's premiere, Smoothie, Limey and Spud listen at the decrepit abandoned house where Spud lives, as Wanda and Hal, now engaged, thank Smoothie over the radio. Smoothie, bittersweetly happy for them, says that maybe it is just as well that he isn't the marrying kind.
Director
David Butler
Cast
Spencer Tracy
"pat" Paterson
John Boles
Sid Silvers
Herbert Mundin
Harry Green
Thelma Todd
Robert E. O'connor
Dell Henderson
Suzanne Kaaren
Douglas Wood
Johnny Boyle
Sammy Glasser
Walter Hardwick
David Field
Samuel E. Hines
Mariska Aldrich
Ernest Wood
John T. Murray
Allen Connor
Ned Norton
William R. Arnold
Arthur Loft
Frank O'connor
Jean Gale
Irene Colman
Virginia Pine
Loretta Rush
Vera Payton
Opal Ernie
Richard Carle
Cecil Cunningham
Ferdinand Munier
June Gale
Vivian Keefer
Jane Hamilton
Bonnie Bannon
Barbara Pepper
Dolores Casey
Mary Lange
Lucille Ball
Ruth Moody
Dona Massin
Shirley Lloyd
Laura La Marr
Jean Fursa
Sugar Geise
Betty Gordon
Katharine Snell
Betty Neitman
Beverly Royde
Virginia Ray
Alice Stombs
Kathryn Hankin
Ann Darcy
Patricia Dobbs
Dee Dowell
Georgia Clarke
Elizabeth Cooke
Peggy Beck
Lee Auburn
Mildred Unger
Valerie Traxler
Eileen Thomas
Crew
Harold Adamson
Joseph Aiken
Constantine Bakaleinikoff
E. L. Berry
David Butler
B. G. Desylva
B. G. Desylva
Harold Hecht
Gus Kahn
Burton Lane
Arthur Miller
Irene Morra
Russell Patterson
J. Russel Robinson
Ad Schaumer
Winfield Sheehan
Sid Silvers
Richard A. Whiting
Gordon Wiles
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
This was English actress "Pat" Paterson's first American film. She later married Charles Boyer. According to International Photographer, Harry Jackson's radio orchestra was used in the recording of the score. According to information in the Twentieth Century-Fox Records of the Legal Department at the UCLA Theater Arts Library, Sam Goldwyn, Inc. loaned the following eight "Goldwyn Girls": June Gale, Vivian Keefer, Jane Hamilton, Bonnie Bannon, Barbara Pepper, Dolores Casey, Mary Lange and Lucille Ball. The film, in its preview in Oakland, CA. on February 19, 1934, was 96 minutes in length; a reviewer noted that it was "draggy" in its opening and closing sequences. The New York Times review listed an additional song in the film entitled "Bottoms Up," but this was not in the print viewed nor was it in the cue sheet for the film in the legal records. The film was originally scheduled to be released on April 13, 1934.
