Hotel Haywire (1937) DVD-R

Starring Leo Carrillo, Mary Carlisle, Lynne Overman, George Barbier,
Spring Byington, Benny Baker
Directed by Arthur Archainbaud

Print: black/white
Runtime: 66 min.
Genre: comedy
Print Quality: B

The inimitable Preston Sturges originally scripted Hotel Haywire with
George Burns and Gracie Allen in mind, but by the time the film went
before the cameras, the Burns and Allen roles had been recast with
Benny Baker and Colette Lyons -- and significantly abbreviated in the
process. A dentist named Parkhouse (Lynne Overman) plays a practical
joke on a poker-playing buddy by sending him home with a lady's chemise
stuffed in his coat pocket. The gag backfires, whereupon Parkhouse finds
himself in hot water with his own wife (Spring Byington). Threatened with
divorce, Parkhouse is advised by a zany astrologer to frame Mrs. P. in a
compromising situation at the Hotel Haywire, enlisting amateur detectives
Bert and Genevieve Sterns (Baker and Lyons) in his scheme. Things get
really hectic when Parkhouse's daughter Phyllis (Mary Carlisle) and her
sweetheart Frank (John Patterson) show up at the same hotel. The film is
dominated by the antics of larcenous astrologer Zodiac Z. Zippe, played
with comic ferocity by Leo Carrillo.