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Best movie of this year hands down!

That was an excellent one.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

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.

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

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.

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!