Hoopla (1933) User Reviews (16)

Clara Bow's farewell performance

[stwhite · 7/10 · 31 May 2003]

Very few performers can take an ordinary or above average script and make the movie stand out and make you want to see it again. I think Clara Bow was one of the few actresses that had that ability- not just with this film (and this story arguably centers around the father-son characters, not Clara's), but many of the others throughout her career. Without Clara in the part of Lou, this is just an average pre-Code film that would have been long forgotten (they certainly weren't trying to put anything by the censors in this one- a skinnydipping scene, Clara undressing, and Nifty's girlfriend upset because she can't spend the night with him because he doesn't want his son to know- by 1935 the Hays Office would would not permit any of this on screen). Watching her seduce the naive son of the carnival barker was fun to watch, as was the scene when she gets busted by a cop and a father for conning a ring from another young man. Hoopla does provide an interesting glimpse into carney life and rail travel in the early 1930s. The supporting cast is fine, particularly Richard Cromwell as Nifty, but I think with a little more effort on the writing and direction this could have even better.

Although this may be one her better sound films, I wouldn't rate it at quite at the same level of Clara's best silent films, It and Mantrap, but it's still enjoyable. Clara clearly thrived in the silent environment and some have said that dialogue and the the constraints of the early sound stages restricted the uninhibited It girl. Maybe so, but I would argue that much of that can be attributed to the average material she was given to work with. This actress was capable of much more if she had been cast in better roles throughout her career. According to her biographer, Clara was not enthusiastic about making Hoopla, she just wanted to get it over with so she could fulfill her contract to Fox and retire. Regardless, if you are a Clara fan or just a fan of pre-Code films, odds are you will enjoy this one. I know I did and will watch Clara again and again!

Clara Bow shines in her final film

[melancholysugarcane · 8/10 · 20 April 2001]

This is one of my favorite movies from Clara. She shows her usual yet incredible range of emotions perfectly blended to her character, Lou. Although a beautiful performance by Clara, the movie seems somehow restrained, not being as heart-stirring as some of her silent performances. It is unique, though, in the fact that Clara seems to have shed much of her "IT" girl image that was so evident in her later silent films. All-in-all, a beautiful performance by Miss Bow and a deliciously intriguing story line.

The main hoopla over this is to see Clara Bow in her final film performance...

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 3 November 2020]

.... and afterwards she retired to married life with western star Rex Bell.

When I watched this film this morning, the storyline did seem somewhat familiar to me - Man in a profession that requires lots of traveling and has lots of seedy characters spurns his mistress when a green young relative (in this case a son) shows up because he does not want her bad influence on him (it takes two to tango is apparently NOT in his vocabulary). The spurned mistress seeks revenge by paying a friend to vamp the green young relative, but the scheme backfires when the two actually fall in love. The original man/hypocrite in traveling profession rejects everybody involved and eventually hits the skids and ultimately eats humble pie.

That other movie was made the year before this -"The Crowd Roars" with James Cagney, Joan Blondell, and Ann Dvorak. I know this film is a sound remake of 1928's "The Barker", and I wonder if Warner Bros. didn't somewhat copy this material and make the Cagney film the year before. There are so many similarities. But I digress.

In this case the hypocrite is a carnival barker (Preston Foster as Nifty) who doesn't like that his grown but green son is spending time between college semesters (Richard Cromwell as Chris) by visiting him at the carnival. First Nifty kicks his long time mistress (Minna Gombell as Carrie) out of their mutual sleeping quarters because he doesn't want his son to get the right idea, and then when everybody in the carnival train is sharing a bottle of whiskey, Chris has some and passes out. That is when Nifty gives Carrie the boot as far as their relationship. Like it was her turn to watch the world's tallest infant.

Carrie decides to get even by paying fellow dancing girl Lou (Clara Bow) one hundred dollars to vamp "the kid". Lou works her stuff like a pro but falls in love in the process. Chris wants to marry Lou, but she wonders if she will just weigh down Chris in his quest for a legal career. And if Nifty would stop insulting them both long enough he might see that Lou is not as bad as he thinks she is. Complications ensue.

The screenplay really has nothing to recommend it that you probably haven't seen before. Maybe circus/carnival films were such a big thing when sound first came in because for the first time the audience could hear as well as see the excitement of the midway. Clara Bow still has "It" in this, her last film performance. And there are some good precode moments including a girl in the carnival sewing up the pants of a guy in the carnival. In thanks he says "I'll do the same for you some time." And then there is a fight that breaks out over the dancing girls that seems to encompass the entire carnival. I'm not even sure what the point of that scene was, but Depression era Fox pre-receivership did some strange things in their films. Keep an eye out for James Gleason towards the end of the film in a cameo role. Gleason was famous by this time and I'm not sure what he is doing here. But like receiving a delicious stuffed mushroom that you didn't order along with the proletariat hamburger that you did, it was a delightful if unexpected surprise.

Recommended for people who want to see Clara go out on top.

Clara Bow's Final Film

[drednm · 17 April 2005]

Hoopla is a talkie remake of The Barker, a famous play of the day that was made into a hit silent/part-talkie starring Betty Compson (Oscar nomination) who played Carrie while Dorothy Mackaill played Lou. Here Bow plays the lead role of Lou, a good-time carnival girl who, on a bet, chases after the boss' innocent son only to fall in love. Bow is remarkable in her final film and follow-up to the sensational Call Her Savage (1932). Her vitality and sexuality jump off the screen and make her very contemporary. She's also a fine actress, able to jump from comedy to drama easily. She rivaled Jean Harlow in her ability to make audience like tramps. As the hoochie koochie dancer, Bow gets to do a couple of numbers. Her final costume is a doozie. The cast is quite good. Hunky Preston Foster is wonderful as the boss and father of the innocent boy. He's aged about 10 year but carries the part well. Minna Gombell as Carrie, Florence Roberts as the fortune teller, James Gleason, Herbert Mundin are good, but Richard Cromwell is a bit gooey. If not for personal problems, Clara Bow could have had a great career in talkies. Too bad.

Classic Clara Bow!

[Briguy-14 · 7/10 · 13 June 2000]

It's a tragedy that this should be Clara Bow's final film. She certainly had many years of good work ahead of her. She lights up the screen whenever she appears. She has wonderfully dramatic as well as comedic scenes here. Unfortunately, as much cannot be said about other cast members performances. Her final "snake hips" costume is the most revealing onscreen apparel of her career.

A whore with a heart of gold....

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 15 February 2017]

The biggest reason to watch "Hoop-La" is to see Clara Bow in her final film...which is amazing as she was only 28 when she made this picture. Is it a great film? Certainly not...but it's also not bad at all and is entertaining despite the clichés.

When the film begins, Nifty (Preston Foster) is upset to see his son has left his studies to come hang out at his father's carnival. The carnival life in this film is quite seedy and Nifty doesn't want his grown son to become a low-life like his friends and coworkers. Unfortunately, he lets the kid stay for a bit...and Lou (Bow) is paid by Nifty's 'girlfriend' to vamp the kid. Amazingly, though, the hard as nails Lou soon finds herself in love with the naive young man. Now what's she to do?!

This film is clearly a Pre-Code picture due to its sensibilities. Stuff is often never said but it's clear Nifty's girl is cohabitating with him and that Lou is a thief and probably a prostitute. Racy like many Pre-Coders...but also vague like many of them as well.

So is it any good? Well, it's fair. The film promotes the old 'Hooker with a heart of gold' myth and is predictable...but it's also entertaining. For fans of Bow, it's worth your time. For others...it's a coin toss.

Hoopla review

[JoeytheBrit · 6/10 · 18 April 2020]

A brazen fairground dancer finds herself falling for the son of the show's manager after accepting $100 to make him fall for her. Clara Bow's final movie sees her give a winning performance, even though her brassy showgirl is no romantic fit for Richard Cromwell's wet-behind-the-ears youth. The movie starts out strongly, but becomes increasingly formulaic as its story unfolds. Worth watching just to see the fat lady being loaded onto the train!

Clara Was So Much Better Than She Realised!!!

[kidboots · 9/10 · 20 November 2011]

Clara was sure critics would dislike "Hoopla" as much as she did but she was wrong. By the time Paramount found a follow up vehicle to "Call Her Savage" twelve months had passed and Clara had lost the desire to work again but contractual obligations forced her to make one last film. An odd choice, Paramount went with "The Barker", a Broadway play starring Claudette Colbert that had already been made into a film with Betty Compson and Dorothy Mackaill. Clara didn't like her part as the tarty carnival dancer but if she rejected it she may have to wait another year for the studio to find something else. Critics loved it and found she had definitely matured as an actress. They also felt she photographed beautifully. Most actresses career's would be dead with a year between films but Clara, it was thought, was at the height of her power. But for Clara it was over and she was about to face her biggest challenge - motherhood and domesticity.

Nifty Miller (Preston Foster) is in for a shock - his long, unseen son Chris (Richard Cromwell) has ridden the rails especially to catch up with his dad before the carnival opens in another town. Not everyone is happy to see him, his father wishes he had stayed on the farm and Nifty's mistress Carrie (Minna Gombell in another incisive portrayal) sees marriage to Nifty evaporate because of Chris's arrival.

"You mind your own business"!!! - "I ain't got the energy"!! Beautiful Lou (Bow) is the carnival vamp who leaves a trail of broken hearts in every town they play. Carrie is beside herself with jealousy and after a confrontation in a train (involving a gun!!) she convinces Lou (with the aid of $100) to trap Chris into a romance. Poor Clara, no wonder she felt jaded with the way the studios used her - her last film (although no one knew it at the time) and Fox still trotted out the obligatory "nude" bathing scene. The scene where Lou realises her feelings for Chris are genuine, her whole face has a transformation - Clara showed that she was still a forced to be reckoned with, within the acting world (even though no one, least of all Clara believed it)!!!

The last scene bought tears to my eyes - Lou and Chris eventually marry, she forces him to return to his studies while she supports him doing an Egyptian dance at the Chicago World's Fair which proves sensational. Nifty reappears - his estrangement from Chris has hit him hard and he is down and out but Lou (unbeknownst to him) has arranged for him to be her "spieler" and the last shot is of the luminous Lou, Nifty realising everything she has done for Chris and finally able to give her all the accolades she deserves.

Preston Foster was a superb, under-rated character actor who first came to attention when he recreated his Broadway role of Bud Clarke in the film version of "Two Seconds". Although only in his early thirties, with a bit of gray hair dye, he looked completely at home as Chris's father. Richard Cromwell was originally an artist whose series of masks bought him commissions from Joan Crawford, Bea Lillie and Greta Garbo. He was still only 20 and from there drifted into movies, usually playing fresh faced eager college kids ie "The Age of Consent" (1932) and "This Day and Age" (1933).

Clara Bow Calls It Quits

[wes-connors · 5/10 · 5 August 2008]

Fresh-faced student Richard Cromwell (as Chris Miller) jumps off a train, to join father Preston Foster (as Nifty Miller)'s traveling carnival. Mr. Foster wants his son to stay away from the sleazy side-show folk, and pursue his interest in becoming a lawyer; but, Mr. Cromwell wants to spend some quality time with his dad. With the kid around, Foster must move bed-partner Minna Gombell (as Carrie) to other quarters; so, she slips under the covers with Clara Bow (as Lou). Ms. Gombell doesn't appreciate losing her bed-space to Cromwell; so, she asks Ms. Bow to seduce him. Bow says she doesn't want to be a "cradle robber", but changes her mind for $100.00.

Bow and Cromwell try to make it believable, after her swimming scene (to their credit); but, watching them is like watching Mae West seduce Charles Ray. A re-make of "The Barker" doesn't seem like an inappropriate vehicle; however, "Hoop-la" exploits the plumper Bow's past and (at the time) notoriety. This is precisely the kind of exploitation Bow should have been moving away from, at this point in her career. Not an awful film, all things considered. But not enough for Bow to carry on after all the "Hoop-la". So Bow, born within only two years of Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, and Katharine Hepburn… sadly, retired.

***** Hoop-la (11/30/33) Frank Lloyd ~ Clara Bow, Richard Cromwell, Preston Foster

Clara is wonderful!

[JohnHowardReid · 9/10 · 7 January 2018]

Fortunately director Frank Lloyd does not disappoint with his 1933 Hoop-La which turned out to be Clara Bow's final film. She is wonderful. Her performance alone would make the film a must-see, but she receives excellent support from Minna Gombell, Herbert Mundin, Preston Foster, Richard Cromwell and the rest of the side-show folk.

Lloyd's skillful direction is not confined to his players, but extends to his creation of atmosphere and realistic effects.

Of course Lloyd had a big budget to play around with, and he uses it with both daring and sympathy.

Admittedly, the background is no Nightmare Alley, but it's no Shirley Temple kiddie-land either.

(Available on an 8/10 LostFlix DVD).

Love in a traveling carnival

[psteier · 5/10 · 13 June 2000]

Carnival manager and barker Preston Foster (Nifty) is going with Minna Gombell (Carrie). When his son Richard Cromwell (Chris) shows up on summer break from law school, Carrie gets the air since Nifty wants to keep his son away from the evil influences of carney life and people. Carrie then pays Clara Bow (Lou) to seduce the son in revenge, but she falls for him.

Nice carney atmosphere but few carnival acts besides Clara Bow's 'Egyptian' dancing. Her costume working the Chicago Worlds Fair midway shows even more of Clara Bow then her nude swim.

Time beguiles

[mayo2338 · 10/10 · 24 May 2002]

The extraordinarily fortuitous fact of being an existant does beguile and entrance us all into the illusion of a vibrant and eternal immortality. Thus Clara Bow in HOOPLA. Time illumines our vibrancy, then by a thousand surreptitious cuts does eventually slay each of us diminution by infinitesimal diminution. Thus did time to the irrepressible Clara Bow.

A bit of a letdown after the fabulous Call Her Savage

[1930s_Time_Machine · 5/10 · 9 July 2023]

Despite lucrative offers from the big studios, Clara Bow had already decided to quit the movies by the time she made this. With CALL HER SAVAGE she had proven she was a good actress so just went through the motions with this to fulfil her contract.

Fox Film didn't seem to know what they were doing in 1933 other than to try anything to keep going and make money. They bought the rights to a successful play called The Barker starring Walter Huston as a carnival barker. That play also had Claudette Colbert in a minor role as a tarty carnival dancer who seduces the barker's son and Fox switched the emphasis from focusing on the barker to the dancer so they could showcase, for the last time their cash cow, Clara Bow.

The revised story still allowed the character of the father, played with empathy and emotion by Preston Foster to develop into a real person whom you can care about. Apparently Fox tried to get Walter Huston to reprise his role from the stage production; had that come off, this may have turned out to be something very special but Foster does a reasonable job. His role however was diluted by the greater screen time given to Clara Bow. That whiffed a little of desperation by having their star constantly undressing and putting her in the scantiest of scanty outfits. They were getting their money's worth from her before she retired to live on her husband's ranch in the mid-west. Whilst one one hand it's a shame to see how she allowed herself to exploited for blatant titillation, it has to be admitted that her final 'Snake Hips' outfit is the stuff that young men's and indeed old men's dreams are made of.

The story might have worked as a play but not as a film. It's impossible to believe that any of this nonsense could happen. It's also impossible to believe that anyone as wet and pathetic as the son character could exist, let alone that Clara Bow's firecracker character could fall in love with such an utter drip.

It's sad that after CALL HER SAVAGE, in which she was fantastic, Fox didn't give her something as good to go out on instead of this. HOOPLA isn't a bad film, it's made well, acted well but hardly a fitting end for such an icon of cinema.

Clara Bow bows out but Ozu steps in.

[max von meyerling · 4 December 2006]

HOOPLA is a remake of a part-talkie film THE BARKER (1928) which in turn was based on a play. It was also the basis for two films by Ozu, the silent STORY OF FLOATING WEEDS (1934), and the Cinemascope and color FLOATING WEEDS (1959).

In this permutation, Preston Foster is the father of Richard Cromwell who shows up one day at the traveling carnival he runs. While Foster tries to discourage his son's interest in show business Foster's neglected mistress Minna Gombel pays the carnival's resident femme fatale, Clara Bow, to distract the son, Richard Cromwell to allow her access to Foster.

When first seen Foster has his hair grayed so patiently artificial I almost expected the film to be a flashback (music from Showboat can be heard disguised as circus music). The gray had obviously been added because in real life Foster was a mere ten years older than Cromwell.

The main distinction of HOOPLA was that it was Clara Bow's last film. Its not difficult to see why her career ended. Though she got an especially up-beat review in Variety, she was at the beginning of an irreversible slide from Kupie cute to dumpy. Her stock in trade was 'perky' and it was looking out of place. Not only was her type going out of fashion and the arrival of the code was merely the coup de grace, she really didn't seem to want to continue. Both Harlow and Monroe, her successors as sex goddesses, projected other qualities which were more long lived. Harlow was elegant and Monroe child-like. Yet both died very young and Bow was quite elderly when she went.

It might have been fun when she was one of the biggest stars in the world, but she didn't have the will to become a mere player. She was adequate or even fun playing herself, or at least a representation of the self manufactured myth, but she would never be able to do or enjoy merely continuing on as a working actress.

Its an old story, one that is so common today that it barely attracts comment. Watch a decades worth of opening TV credits sometime. Bow does the things that wowed then a few years before. She is seen getting in and out of her clothes numerous times and takes a swim in the nude. You don't actually see anything but this was standard operating procedure for Bow. And now nobody cared.

She does seduce the boy (she had been seen as something of a chicken queen earlier in the picture). It was sometime after her nude swim I think. They just barely get back to the train steaming out of a sidetrack (in order to let the Limited pass) and they stand in the vestibule and he says "Well we made it". Pretty unambiguous stuff.

Bow regrets having taken on the trick but, well folks, she has fallen in love with the boy never-the-less. What a surprise. A woman manages, once again, to come between two men but it all ends happily in the end. The men are reunited.

The print I saw had French titles at the beginning and the end (with no sound track) but an English language track with one reel having rather dodgy sound. Possibly this was found someplace as a dubbed print while a separate sound track was all that was left in the Fox vaults.

Its a pleasant enough ride whose non-code details add immeasurably in unfolding the narrative in a straightforward fashion. But this is in a totally different universe from either of Ozu's masterpiece films, which, unlike HOOPLA, are highly recommended.

Ok

[bevo-13678 · 10/10 · 7 March 2021]

Pretty good but not as good as the tv show hoopla doopla

Fun trash for the end of the line for the It Girl in motion pictures.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 27 August 2014]

After 60+ motion pictures, Clara Bow Bell made her exit with this fun Mae West like drama about a bad girl who finds the opportunity to go good when a scheme of revenge goes awry. She is a hooch dancer who "collects favors" and goes after the boss's son (Richard Cromwell) after the boss's mistress (a most feisty Minna Gombell) convinces her to seduce him and get her hands on some of papa's (Preston Foster) cash. Of course, the fabulous redhead is hiding a heart of gold behind those trashy looking gold sequins and love comes flying out of the big heart that melts the ice in her outside demeanor.

Having gained a bit of weight and looking a bit blowsy, Bow still has "It" as she plays one of her few bad girls. She's not as sexually aggressive as Mae but plays cute and coy when out to seduce the innocent Cromwell. Florence Benson is amusing as a haggish looking fortune teller who first encounters Cromwell, believing him to be a naive patron. She steals the spotlight in an amusing drunk scene with Bow, Gombell and Cromwell. While not as glamorous looking as Mae's big 1933 carny hit "I'm No Angel", it is still fun, a bit more high brow than MGM's cult horror film "Freaks" which showed a much darker side of carny life. Clara may not have liked the results of this film, but over 80 years later, it holds up better than some of her higher budgeted talkies she did while still in her prime.