What makes it different from others?

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

I totally believe in not rewriting history, and it is always interesting to see how minorities were treated in films. However, the blackface scene in this movie made me cringe.That out of the way, Hollywood Hotel is pleasant enough. Ronnie Bowers (Dick Powell) is a saxophone player in Benny Goodman's band, He wins a talent contest and the prize is a ten-week trip to Hollywood. Once there, he is brought to the Hollywood Hotel.We then meet a real diva, Mona Marshall (Lola Lane), her sister (Mabel Todd), her father Chester (Hugh Herbert), and her secretary (Glenda Farrell). Angry that she didn't get a role she wanted, Mona leaves the city even though a new film of hers opens that night. A waitress who resembles her, Virginia (Rosemary Lane) is hired to impersonate her, and Ronnie escorts her to the premiere.When Mona finds out, she's livid and has Virginia and Ronnie fired. Ronnie gets a job as a waiter. He's discovered, but it's to dub for the male star of Mona's new movie.Lots of music, good performances. Nothing special.

"Hollywood Hotel" is a nice bit of nostalgia that gives you a chance to see Hollywood of the past. You'll see glimpses of the Brown Derby restaurant, the Hollywood Bowl, Louella Parsons playing herself and see a fictionalized story of a young talent (Dick Powell) being discovered and made a star. It's all pretty good fun...but it's FAR from a perfect picture. That's because there are several characters that are absolutely dreadful. You know it's got some terrible characters when Hugh Herbert and Ted Healy are NOT among the most unlikable and obnoxious folks in the film (and they are unlikable and obnoxious)! The most obvious and rather embarrassing performance is Lola Lane parodying an obnoxious and overrated actress. There's a fine line between being funny and just being obnoxious--Lola, unfortunately, is not funny in this role and the director (Busby Berkeley) did a lousy job of getting a believable performance out of her. But, the absolutely WORST is Mabel Todd who plays a cretin--an absolutely horrid and unfunny character that is MUCH less subtle than Jerry Lewis' characters from the 1950s. She is simply a cancer on the film and every second she's in the movie is dreadful. Fortunately, she's only in a few scenes here and there but it's amazing just how easy I found it to hate her. Now you might think I am being too harsh--see the movie yourself and I can almost guarantee you'll agree with me.It's all such a big shame, as there are a lot of things to like about the film. You get to see Benny Goodman and his orchestra in their prime, a VERY young Ronald Reagan in one of his first films (and, you'll probably notice how different his voice is) and a couple decent performances by Powell and Rosemary Lane (Lola's real-life sister). It's also an interesting film because in many ways the plot is like the one later used in "Singing in the Rain". It's so similar that fans of this later film should be fascinating due to the parallels.By the way, there are a couple cringe-worthy and politically incorrect moments to look out for if you see the film. There's the very gay fashion designer as well as when Hugh Herbert is in black-face (uggh).

Hollywood Hotel was the last movie musical that Busby Berkeley directed for Warner Bros. His directing style had changed or evolved to the point that this film does not contain his signature overhead shots or huge production numbers with thousands of extras. By the last few years of the Thirties, swing-style big bands were recording the year's biggest popular hits. The Swing Era, also called the Big Band Era, has been dated variously from 1935 to 1944 or 1939 to 1949. Although it is impossible to exactly pinpoint the moment that the Swing Era began, Benny Goodman's engagement at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles in the late summer of 1935 was certainly one of the early indications that swing was entering the consciousness of mainstream America's youth. When Goodman featured his swing repertoire rather than the society-style dance music that his band had been playing, the youth in the audience went wild. That was the beginning, but, since radio, live concerts and word of mouth were the primary methods available to spread the phenomena, it took some time before swing made enough inroads to produce big hits that showed up on the pop charts. In Hollywood Hotel, the appearance of Benny Goodman and His Orchestra and Raymond Paige and His Orchestra in the film indicates that the film industry was ready to capitalize on the shift in musical taste (the film was in production only a year and a half or so after Goodman's Palomar Ballroom engagement). There are a few interesting musical moments here and there in Hollywood Hotel, but except for Benny Goodman and His Orchestra's "Sing, Sing, Sing," there isn't a lot to commend. Otherwise, the most interesting musical sequences are the opening "Hooray for Hollywood" parade and "Let That Be a Lesson to You" production number at the drive-in restaurant. The film is most interesting to see and hear Benny Goodman and His Orchestra play and Dick Powell and Frances Langford sing.

This is really a lemon of a musical from Warner Bros. with DICK POWELL as a boy singer who wins a contest that sends the naive guy to Hollywood where he ends up escorting a movie star imposter (ROSEMARY LANE) to a Hollywood premiere. Seems Rosemary is impersonating a temperamental diva (LOLA LANE), who overacts in awful style the role of a spoiled movie star who refuses to attend the premiere of her latest musical.None of the songs are the least bit memorable but occasionally director Busby Berkeley gets to improvise and put some of his touches on the camera-work and choreography of assorted group numbers. Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra with Gene Krupa on the drums and a visible Harry James as a member of the band, gets to have a couple of big band segments, and Frances Langford gets to do a brief song with Dick Powell. Raymond Paige and his orchestra do a nice job on a Russian number with chorus and orchestra. These are the film's only highlights.Comedy relief is supplied by Hugh Herbert, Ted Healy, Edgar Kennedy, Allyn Joslyn, Curt Bois, Glenda Farrel and Grant Mitchell, weak as it is. You can catch a glimpse of Ronald Reagan as the MC at the premiere of a new film, Carole Landis as a hatcheck girl in the background of a scene with Hugh Herbert, and Louella Parsons plays herself as a columnist who thinks she's getting the scoop on things. It's a good thing she didn't give up her day job.On the plus side, ROSEMARY LANE is lovely and has a nice singing voice, DICK POWELL does a passable job on some innocuous songs, and GLENDA FARREL has a winning way with some sharp wisecracks. ALAN MOBRAY is painfully bad as an overbearing actor that Powell is hired to sing for, and just about all of the comedy efforts are handicapped by a bad script.LOLA LANE overdoes the diva bit to an almost irritating degree at the start of the film and it all goes downhill from there.Good camera-work, some nice B&W photography of plush interiors, and a few nice touches by Busby Berkeley can't compensate for a cliché-ridden story of boy meets girl in Hollywood, set to some "moon and June" songs that can hardly be called inspired.Summing up: Disappointing musical.