Once in a Lifetime (1932) User Reviews

Broadway to Hollywood

[lugonian · 7/10 · 1 June 2001]

ONCE IN A LIFETIME (Universal, 1932), directed by Russell Mack, is a film comedy based on the 1930 stage success by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. The screen adaptation, often stagy and mostly all-talking, does manage to come across with some funny lines given by veteran comedians, headed by Jack Oakie (on loan from Paramount) as George Lewis, the lovable dim-wit who cracks and chews nuts, with Aline MacMahon (on loan from Warner Brothers) as the serious-minded, acid-tongued May Daniels, whose mannerisms sometimes reminds me of Audrey Meadows character role of Alice Kramden in the classic TV sit-com "The Honeymooners" starring Jackie Gleason.

The story begins with a trio of vaudevillians, George, May and Jerry Hyland (Russell Hopton) who find there is no longer a future in performing to almost empty houses while crowds line up outside movie theaters to watch the new phase of "talking pictures," the premiere of THE JAZZ SINGER starring Al Jolson. May suggests the trio take their once in a lifetime chance, pack up their bags and taking the next train bound for Hollywood where they can land jobs as voice-culture experts, even though they know nothing about the subject. On the train they encounter Helen Hobart (Louise Fazenda), a gossip columnist, conversing with Susan Walker (Sidney Fox), an young hopeful who is heading for Hollywood to break into the movies. George becomes very much interested in young Susan, but before long, Susan starts to call him "Georgie." After making a good impression with Helen Hobart, George, May and Jerry con her into letting them visit with the studio boss, Herman Glogauer (Gregory Ratoff) who agrees on setting up a school of elocution. Because George boldly talks back to the heavily accented Glogauer, telling him truths that his "yes" men keep from him, George is made supervising producer. Funny moments occur when George is given a movie assignment, but to Glogauer's rage, learns that George has filmed the wrong movie by taking a script from a 1910 Biograph production. As for Susan, who auditions by stump marching her feet and reciting "Boots, Boots, Boots, Boots ...." gets a small part in George's movie as a bride who says "I do," but after seeing the sneak preview, becomes outraged by the outcome, believing her career is finished before it's begun. More complications ensue.

Featured in the supporting cast are Onslow Stevens as Lawrence Vail, a young playwright (reportedly inspired by Kaufman himself) who sits in the studio waiting area for SIX months hoping to see Mr. Glogauer, eventually getting frustrated at Glogauer's scatterbrained receptionist, Miss Leighton (ZaSu Pitts), before taking the next train back East; Jobyna Howland and Robert McWade as Susan's parents; Gregory Gaye as Rudolph; Carol Tevis, the one with that baby voice, as Florabelle Leigh, auditioning for a movie role by crying; and appearing briefly is Margaret Lindsay as George Lewis's secretary.

Once considered to be a lost movie, the found ONCE IN A LIFETIME made its rare television broadcast February 11, 1971, on New York City's public television station of WNET, Channel 13, as part of NET Playhouse ("Rediscovery of a Lost Film"), as well as revival movie houses about the same time before being taken out of circulation again. Run times have varied from 75 to 91 minutes.

While other Hollywood's Hollywood stories of 1932 occasionally do get revived these days, including the serious "What Price Hollywood? (RKO); the hilarious Harold Lloyd comedy, "Movie Crazy," and comedy-drama, "Make Me a Star" (both for Paramount), as often broadcast in recent years on Turner Classic Movies cable television, ONCE IN A LIFETIME is worthy of rediscovering again, and to see it shown after decades resting in some dark studio vault, should definitely be a once in a lifetime experience. (***)

The Reel "Act One" for Kaufman and Hart

[JOe-281 · 8/10 · 5 June 2001]

There ought to be a movement to bring this one back from the dead. This is a film for which the term "revival" seems to have been invented. No matter a certain staginess -- its humor and topicality, not to mention its place in history as the first collaboration between George S Kaufman and Moss Hart, make it a "must see." It's not only connected to other early Thirties films like What Price Hollywood, but also to the much adulated Singin' In the Rain. If the latter is a Fifties musical displaying the well-scrubbed brightness of that era's sensibilities, then Once In A Lifetime is its counterpoint, betraying a Depression-era, acerbic grasp of the absurdity of the movie business and of "human business" in general. It ought to be on a double bill with Harlow's Bombshell -- another clever and entertaining early 1930s view of Hollywood and the "geniuses" who ran it.

Mildly amusing.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 27 July 2018]

Normally I don't write 'mildly amusing', but this time I did because one reviewer felt it was the funniest film ever. I would beg to differ, though we all have our opinions and I am glad they loved it that much. As for me, it had a few amusing moments.

The story begins with a group of three Vaudevillians are talking about the new sensation, talking pictures. The brains of the group (Aline MacMahon) suggests they capitalize on this by heading to Hollywood and pretending to be voice coaches. Soon, they get hired by a crackpot studio head and although George (Jack Oakie) is by far the dumbest of the group, he manages to have hit after hit!

Overall, this is a mildly funny comedy about the early days of talking pictures. The latter portion with Oakie is the best and occasionally portions of it fall a bit flat...and the third in the trio is about as charismatic as a shoe lace. But, overall well worth seeing...particularly if you love old films.

This is funniest film I have ever seen.

[jes535 · 10/10 · 4 February 2007]

I am 59 years old; I have seen a lot of movies; "Once in a Lifetime" is the funniest film I have ever seen.

In the 1960s, when I was in high school in suburban Philadelphia, the local public television station broadcast this Kaufman and Hart play brought to the screen in 1932 with a brio that made it impossible to stop laughing.

The story concerns a Vaudeville troop unable to make a living because films had destroyed Vaudeville. Then, after seeing the "Jazz Singer," the troop members decide to head for Hollywood to open an elocution school for actors eager to speak acceptably for the newly-developed medium of talking pictures.

I have only seen this movie that one time, but every time I hear the word "elocution," I think of "Once in a Lifetime" and remember the train scene where a 9 year-old girl walks up and down the train reciting, "'Boots' by Rudyard Kipling…'Boots, boots, boots….'"

A non-horror early talkie Universal gem

[AlsExGal · 10/10 · 22 August 2010]

This film has the look of the early 30's Paramounts and the fast pace of the Warner films of that same era, but oddly enough this is a Universal property, and it's hilarious from start to finish.

This is a rare opportunity to look at the transition from silent to sound film only five years out from the release of the Jazz Singer, and yet the same myths that are shown in 1952's "Singin in the Rain" are shown here twenty years earlier. The main myth is that the Jazz Singer was an all talking picture that caused an abrupt revolution in filmmaking from silent to sound and was causing the death of vaudeville even in 1927. In fact, The Jazz Singer was all-silent except for 20 minutes of sound and 90% of that was musical, not talking. Nobody took talking pictures very seriously until mid 1928 when the first all-talking picture "Lights of New York" was released and made tremendous profits in spite of its dismal attempt at art. However, the myth is funnier than the truth, so that is probably the reason that it is shown as fact here.

George Lewis (Jack Oakie) and May Daniels (Aline MacMahon) are vaudevillians that are finding employment increasingly difficult due to the birth of the talkies. Jerry Hyland (Russell Hopton) tells them they should all make the trip from New York to Hollywood and pretend to know something about talking before the camera since the entire town is in chaos. Jerry claims that the big money is not so much in acting, but in helping the bosses and the actors make the transition. They decide to declare themselves elocution instructors. They put on airs with a Hollywood reporter who takes them seriously and makes an introduction for them to Herman Glogauer, head of Glogauer Pictures, played hilariously by Gregory Ratoff.

Once in Hollywood they get introduced to the studio's biggest stars - one is dressed up like Theda Bara and the other Mary Pickford - who are now useless to Glogauer because they cannot speak, and are their first assignments. They also meet a playwright who was told it was urgent that he come to the studio immediately and begin work and has been there six months in a big office with a fat paycheck but nothing to do. He's slowly going crazy sitting in a waiting room for an appointment with Glogauer that never comes while dealing with a dizzy secretary (Zasu Pitts) who can never remember his name or what he wants. There are also pages that walk about the studio halls with big cards around their necks saying who is in conference and where - probably a dig at title cards that hung around in talking pictures because writers initially did not know how to transition between scenes without them.

The long and the short of it is that not only does the emperor have no clothes here, he can't seem to tell who does or does not have clothes himself. This causes the dense member of our vaudeville trio - George - to rise in the ranks to director and become considered a genius of early talking film in spite of the fact that he does everything wrong. The reviewers love his work and think his actual technical errors are high art. They even compare him to Eugene O'Neill. Audiences follow these rave reviews in throngs and result in sell-out crowds for George's film. Also, a rather cute but simple girl George met on the train west whose only talents are her ability to recite Kipling's "Boots" and George's attraction to her becomes a huge star in spite of the fact she can't act. Can George keep up this charade, in spite of the fact that he isn't really bright enough to know it's a charade? Watch and find out.

There isn't a moment of wasted space in this film, and that doesn't mean it's unnecessarily busy either. It's full of wise cracks and observations about the movie business at that time that are priceless. The best delivered remarks come from the amazing yet underrated Aline MacMahon, the philosopher of the group, as she makes biting commentary with an attitude that shows she's resigned to dealing with a world gone mad around her. I only wish that I could find a better print as there is so much going on, especially on the early sound sets, that it would be nice to be able to see more detail.

Outdated screenplay with mostly silliness and humor in situations

[SimonJack · 5/10 · 10 September 2022]

Considering that it was 1932 and America was in the grip of the Great Depression, "Once in a Lifetime" just may well have been some medicine to lighten the worries of moviegoers. The then head of Universal Studios, Carl Laemmle Jr., hyped the film on that basis in a prologue that runs after the credits and before the opening scene. Laemmle says it was a daring thing to bring a hit Broadway play into a film that poked fun at Hollywood and its people so much. He said it was too funny in the eyes of the critics who thought "it would make the world laugh at us." Laemmle says, "So I decided that if I could make the world laugh in times like these, it would be a great thing to do. I now leave it for you to judge whether I have spared the movies in translating the great stage success to the screen."

Well, the U. S. box office receipts of the top 200 films in 1932 ranged from $7.8 million to $200,000, and this film didn't even make that list. So, Laemmle's hopes for lots of laughs (and a sizable profit, one can bet he was hoping for) didn't happen. This wasn't the first time, and wouldn't be the last, when a highly successful stage production bombs as a movie. And there have been some situations in which shows that were weak or mediocre on the stage, made great and successful films. In most of those situations, of both kinds, the screenplays had to be changed considerably from the stage versions.

It seems to me that there's always one thing that producers have to be especially right about. And that's audiences. There is a significant difference in audiences of Broadway shows and those who fill cinema theaters around the country. The latter includes people of all ages, all interests, all levels of education, all regions, and all income brackets. While some people of the various levels and backgrounds may attend occasional Broadway shows, the vast majority of Broadway clients are mostly affluent, white collar, college graduates, and people who work in skyscrapers. The bottom ticket price for the cheap seats of a Broadway show is at least twice the price of the average movie ticket. And better Broadway seats run, three, four and many times higher.

So, while "Once in a Lifetime" may have had the Broadway audiences laughing at the satire and farce, the movie version seems to have gone over like a lead balloon. The movie audiences didn't find the constant silliness and overly exaggerated characters, acting and situations funny. Nor is it very funny well into the 21st century, There is some witty dialog in the film, but not much. There are quite a few wisecracks, but they just don't seem funny today. And, the deliberate overacting and exaggeration seems worn out and dull in modern times.

Where Laemmle calls it poking fun at Hollywood, I think it's mostly mockery. That's a notch above, or worse than poking and jabbing. It is real ridicule. And I saw something else here that's distasteful if not downright prejudiced or insulting. That was in the character of Herman Glogauer, the head of the studio. Gregory Ratoff plays the movie mogul who speaks broken English. Many of the top studio executives of those early years were immigrants or sons of immigrants, and some spoke poor English. Other things, like the making of a star out of a girl with no talent, of staff not able to see the studio heads, and bad films getting the praise of the critics are exaggerated but not far off the mark. The trouble is, most of this acting just isn't funny in the 21st century. It's very dated to the time and place.

Most of the great comedies made during Hollywood's golden age were obviously in settings of the time. But the situations and dialog of the plots were not tied to the specific time and place. They could just as easily be in another place and time, and still be funny to audiences decades later.

I think the cast mostly did a good job with the material and plot they had. But the screenplay could have been much funnier if written subtly rather than flamboyantly. The cast earns the film five stars.

Here are the lines I think come closest to comedy.

Jerry Hyland, "Hey, May, what's a four-letter word for actor?" May Daniels, "Dope."

Mr. Walker, "We're getting out of this orange-flavored, sun-struck, flea-bitten country on the 4:30 train."

Mr. Walker, "And for six weeks I've been listening to that girl groan and grunt and yodel, and she still can't' act."

Spoilers

[Kittyman · 10/10 · 7 December 2008]

This is a extremely funny and entertaining picture which should be restored and released. Ideally, TCM would feature it followed by Singin' in the Rain (1952) and Being There (1979) -- since it foreshadows both of them.

The Plot: Sensing an opportunity for advancement as pictures shift from silent to sound, three Vaudeville partners head west to Hollywood. George (Jack Oakie), who plays a dog in their act, is an amiable dunce. However, in the eyes of grossly incompetent studio officials, he comes to be considered a genius, while talented and competent people (Onslow Stevens as Lawrence Vail and Aline MacMahon as May Daniels) are ignored or fired.

The acting: Three stand-outs are Jack Oakie (his second greatest performance), Aline MacMahon (as the act's brains and conscience), and Onslow Stevens (as George S. Kaufman's alter ego).

Over-Acted, Over-Written, Over-Talkative, Dumbly Done

[JohnHowardReid · 3/10 · 6 August 2012]

I was in seventh heaven when I found what turned out to be a very good copy of this one in my local DVD store. (It's on the VintageFilmBuff label if anyone is interested, though the firm ceased business back in 2010). Was I disappointed! It's basically a photographed stage play, and Russell Mack is not exactly a director of distinction. He seems content to point the camera at the players and leave it at that. Talk about talk, talk, talk! Just about everybody shouts their lines in this movie as if they were on a theatre stage rather than a sound stage. Gregory Ratoff (playing a parody of Universal's own studio head, Carl Laemmle) is the worst offender, but others are not far behind. Jack Oakie, who specialized in dumb roles, is also especially stupid in this one. With Ratoff and Oakie mugging away verbosely, there's little room left for the other principals, although Aline MacMahon gives her steady-as-she-goes character a game try. But both Miss MacMahon and Russell Hopton (who takes a stab at what seems to be building into a big role in the opening scenes), are soon reduced to the background while Oakie and Ratoff tread center stage. And, even more disappointingly, despite her prominent billing, Sidney Fox is hardly in the film at all. If it were not for "Boots, Boots, Boots!", you wouldn't even notice her!

Boots!!! Boots!!! Sidney Fox is Hilarious!!!

[kidboots · 9/10 · 18 April 2011]

Apparently insiders predicted that "Once in a Lifetime" would never be filmed - it not only was (by Universal) but Carl Laemmle inserted a forward that went along the lines of people shouldn't be afraid to laugh at themselves. It had been a biting satirical play in the 1930-31 season (over 400 performances) by George S. Kauffman and Moss Hart, burlesquing the tidal wave of hangers on who flooded Hollywood in the early sound days under the name of "Voice Culturists". Vocal coaches were as common in the early talkie days as frightened stars wondering if they could actually talk into a microphone and technicians who were catapulted into positions of power - as they were the only people who knew how the sound equipment worked.

"Talkies Are In - Vaudeville is Out"!!! Three troupers (May, George and Jerry) decide to get in on the ground floor and go to California to become "Elocution Teachers". On the train they run into an old friend of Mays, dizzy Miss Hobart, a gossip columnist and together they storm Hollywood!! George meets starstruck hopeful Susan, who is the highlight of the movie, as she recites "Boots!! Boots!!" at the drop of a hat, much to the delight of her enthralled mother. A meeting with frustrated writer Lawrence Vail causes extremely dumb George to become the studios new "wonder kid". He merely takes Vail's grievances to studio head Glogauer and before you can blink, the stupidest character in the movie is almost running the studio!!!

No wonder it was touch and go whether this play would be filmed but 1932 was light years away from 1928-9 as far as technology went and I suppose it was hoped that people's memories were short. This movie is really an ensemble piece and every actor rose to the occasion. Jack Oakie was excellent as the very dumb Georgie, whose only talent is being able to remember other people's speeches!! Aline Macmahon is May Daniels, the girl who hits upon the elocution idea in the first place and manages to keep her integrity through thick and thin. The under rated Russell Hopton is Jerry who "goes Hollywood", Zasu Pitts as the world's dumbest receptionist, Louise Fazenda, who for a few years specialized in very ditzy roles - she plays Miss Hobart. There is Onslow Stevens as Lawrence Vail, who at the end is on a train to the sanitarium "where all good writers go". Margaret Lindsay has a blink and you miss her part as George's secretary and Mona Maris really vamps as the Vamp. Gregory Ratoff plays Glogauer, the studio owner, magnificent Jobyna Howland playing a monstrous stage mother as only she can. And last but not least, sweet Sidney Fox, in her best performance as a talentless starlet - satirizing the type of role she often played.

Highly, Highly Recommended.

Once in a Lifetime (1932) (OIAL)

[malvernp · 9/10 · 1 July 2020]

Some thoughts about this film.

Act One is Moss Hart's great autobiography. It is available in at least three current formats: hard copy, a Hollywood film version and a video of a prior Lincoln Center Presents live performance of the play recently released for limited streaming via YouTube. Act One devotes a significant amount of time to describe the Hart-Kaufman creative/collaborative process that resulted in the play version of OIAL. In that respect, it is a valuable resource to use when seriously considering the film version as well.

Aline MacMahon stars in the film in one of her great early roles. She was then 33 years old. Folks who know her work only from her many later films will be astonished by her youthful vitality, flair for comedy and attractive appearance. Ms. MacMahon was then a handsome rather than beautiful woman, but she projected an earthy sexuality that was genuinely appealing. It became even better defined one year later when she all but stole the film Gold Diggers of 1933 from the rest of a top notch cast.

Sidney Fox is hardly remembered today, if at all. But her role in OIAL captures her great petite beauty at near the peak of its appeal. How sad it is that there are so few examples of her work in film currently available for review.

Gregory Ratoff was very funny in the role of the befuddled foreign born studio executive. It is interesting to note that beginning with the first version of A Star Is Born a few years later, this type of character would generally become Americanized--thus erasing a fact from our collective memory that was part of Hollywood's early history.

The Singing in the Rain connection to OIAL has been mentioned by others. It is a very significant one. Actually, a fresh look at the OIAL film version definitely reinforces that view.

Louise Fazenda captures the Hollywood gossip reporter in one of her classic comedy roles. Too bad that like Sidney Fox, she is not well remembered today.

Satire in film was very rare during the era when OIAL was made. Jean Harlow's Bombshell, cited by a previous commentator, is of course another example of the genre. But there were few such attempts produced at that time. ' OIAL is an important film--still available on YouTube. It is also a very enjoyable one. It should be seen by a wider audience.

Amusing Hollywood satire

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 7 September 2023]

This picture, based on a very popular play that ran for over a year on Broadway between 1930 and 1931, is certainly dated. Nevertheless, it retains quite a bit of charm. The basic story is one that spoofs Hollywood filmmaking, and there is even a little 'disclaimer' at the beginning, by Universal executive Carl Laemmle, explaining why he chose to adapt it for the big screen. Apparently, he felt it was important to poke fun at the movie business and have a good sense of humor about how men like he were making a living.

While ONCE IN A LIFETIME is not the best satire ever produced about the foibles of Hollywood, it seems one of the more potent examples. It is not necessarily better than SINGIN' IN THE RAIN which came twenty years later, but it has a greater understanding of the transition from silents to talkies. Mostly because the people acting in the film had recently come to the motion picture capital themselves to achieve stardom on screen and had to deal with that historic transition first-hand. As such, their performances are imbued with realism.

Aline MacMahon, who plays one of the vaudeville performers that goes to Hollywood in the beginning of the story, had just a year earlier left the east coast to start appearing in precodes at Warner Brothers. She was one of the many transplants from the New York stage brought out west because she had a distinctive voice that would record well in a sound film. It's highly appropriate that she's playing a woman who starts an elocution school.

Her pupils include silent stars whose voices grate like nails on a chalkboard...famous people desperate to learn how to speak properly, in order to continue their careers. So you can see where SINGIN' IN THE RAIN's Lina Lamont comes from!

Cast alongside Miss MacMahon are Russell Hopton and Jack Oakie as fellow vaudevillians who are just as eager to make their mark in Hollywood. Most of the dialogue between them on a train to California is witty yet still realistic. We get a sense of their dreams, how they still wish to prove their talents to others, as well as how industrious they are. I was particularly impressed with Oakie, on loan from home studio Paramount, who turns in a fairly subdued performance. Typically Oakie amps up the aww-shucks quality of his roles, exaggerating a premise for comedic effect. But here we have a more earnest portrayal of a guy who has seen a lot of ups and downs and may in fact be a bit depressed by the low points.

Later, after they've arrived in La La Land, we see them gradually succeeding in their efforts. Oakie's character probably evolves the most, since he becomes the most successful. But his fame as a producer is a fluke, which is a wry comment by writers George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, that Hollywood is a gamble where blind luck more often than talent seems to win out. Oakie is hailed as a brilliant visionary, ahead of his time, which is certainly amusing when we know he really doesn't have a clue what he's doing on a soundstage directing actors!

There are several supporting characters, most of them heightened stereotypes, that help put across the idea this is a tongue-in-cheek satire. But underneath the silliness, there is a serious commentary about storytelling as art and the making of such art. One writer at the studio goes idle too long and ends up institutionalized. Other talented people cannot successfully transition from silents to sound. Young hopefuls learn what they must do to make it.

And there is one biting line that says it's easy to make money in Hollywood, as long as you don't try to make good films. Though some good films accidentally do make money at the box office. I don't know how much ONCE IN A LIFETIME made for Universal when it was released, but I think it is definitely a good film that deserves a proper restoration.