Stand-In
Humphrey Bogart takes a rare stab at comedy in the show-biz screwball  comedyStand-In. But though Bogart demonstrates his effortless star  power, Leslie Howard (best known as Ashley Wilkes inGone with the Wind)  turns in a marvelous comic performance as a finicky mathematical whiz named  Atterbury Dodd, who's sent by a bank to decide whether a Hollywood studio should  be salvaged or shut down. Assaulted by social parasites and stage mothers upon  his arrival in Tinseltown, Dodd must take refuge in a flophouse filled with  has-beens, never-weres, and a trained seal--among them a former child star (Joan  Blondell) whose only job now is as a stand-in for an overrated glamour queen.  Between Blondell and Bogart (playing a bitter producer), Dodd gets some lessons  in show-biz economics. The movie's ending is dopey, but it's a lot of fun along  the way.--Bret Fetzer