Watch Down to Their Last Yacht For Free

You won't be disappointed!

hyped garbage

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I watched this movie just to see Sidney Fox ( Sidney which was her REAL first name ( Lifer was the last), is one of the WORST first names for a woman in Motion Picture History ( Charlie Murphy might be the only name as bad)) in her final film is the only reason to watch this movie. Any scene without Fox is bad. Mary Boland as Queen of this Island and Sterling Holloway ( who has such a " Deer In The Headlights" look throughout the movie looks totally stoned) are particularly awful. I wonder if the creators of Gilligans Island saw this movie as an idea? Wealthy and average people ending up on an Island together? Even Gilligan who was pretty stupid in the Series is The Professor compared to the morons in this movie which was EVERYONE except ( Linda Colt-Stratton ( Fox) and Barry Forbes ( Sidney Blackmer) who spoilers ahead: Ends up with Linda). I can only hope that Charlie Murphy has a better career and fate then Sidney Fox who committed suicide at age 34. Needless to say that I despised this movie and give it zero stars. The best thing is Fox and the WORST thing is Fox? Why? She is the only one decent but without her I never would have watched this movie which belongs in the Top Ten All-Time WORST film list.

This may be a programmer from RKO but I saw ambition especially in the production values. And some of the music and songs are by Max Steiner. But I'm a Mary Boland fan. She's wonderful in any thing she appears in usually as Charlie Ruggles wife henpecking him. Well poor Charlie is not in this. Mary is the Queen of her own island visited by some down on their luck socialites from the mainland. These people played by Sidney Blackmer, Sidney Fox and her mother played by Marjorie Gateson decide to lease their yacht for a cruise. On board are the zany likes of Polly Moran, Irene Franklin and Sterling Holloway. Captain of the yacht on this cruise is Ned Sparks who, it seems, 'deliberately' runs the yacht aground on Mary's island. Hmmm! it almost turns out that goofy Sparks was working for Mary as Mary's plan was to find herself a husband from the mainland. Spoiler! She ends up with one of them but I won't say. When the castaways find out that they were purposely trapped on the island they try to get away only to be prevented by Mary's islander posse.But apart from the societal hijinks the movie comes and goes and doesn't overstay it's welcome. It was a wise diversion to add musical numbers in this. They are excellently sung by singers who are native Pacific islanders. And it elevates the movie from being a typical programmer or time waster. Comically the socialites who came in on the yacht join in the chorus at the close of the movie and you know what? They're not half bad. Some will recognize Sterling Holloway in an early performance having trouble playing his Saxophone in the yacht's orchestra.

If you're up for a challenge, definitely see RKO's 1934 bizarrefest DOWN TO THEIR LAST YACHT. You'll have self-inflicted dandruff from scratching your head by the time it's finished, I promise you. A family formerly of the social register hit the skids after the stock market crashes. All they have left is their 80 ft. yacht, which Polly Moran arranges for rental on behalf of skipper Ned Sparks. A boatful of nouveau rich (with the likes of Tom Kennedy, Maurice Black and Blanche Payson!!) set sail for the south seas. Stowaway Sidney Blackmer (watch out - he sings!!) pines for ingenue Sydney Fox, late of MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. Sparks runs aground and the whole gang is captured by Queen Mary Boland and her butler (what else) Charles Coleman. The natives are seen lazily singing of love. The lead is none other than Felix "Tom Tom" Knight. Boland's native guards are armed with tommy guns. She threatens to kill them if Blackmer doesn't marry her. I won't give it all away, but there's more incredulity involving bombs, a radio-wired saxophone and Pooh himself Sterling Holloway.Whether or not DOWN TO THEIR LAST YACHT was actually the financial disaster that legend has painted must be confirmed with documentation. While not a top drawer release, it was certainly big enough to warrant issuance of motion picture edition sheet music. Also, there are some pretty costly optical and miniature effects. But whatever its cost and subsequent receipts, there is no denying that the film is strange beyond comprehension. And for those who are inquisitive and indulgent of films off the beaten path, DOWN TO THEIR LAST YACHT is definitely worth 64 minutes of your time!

***SLIGHT SPOILERS***What a very, very strange movie. From the title and set up one would think that this would be a neat, depression era, class reversal, screwball comedy complete with the icon of that genre, Mary Boland. How wrong one would be.A once wealthy but now working family living in elegant poverty aboard their yacht are suddenly thrust into leasing their yacht and themselves for a cruise for some vulgar and possibly underworld connected nouveau rich by a decidedly sexually ambiguous Polly Moran. All right, that sounds like a comedy. Ned Sparks is hired as the captain and Sidney Blackmer has a very early outing as a romantic lead, a singing romantic lead, romancing Sidney Fox (certainly one of the few, possibly unique, screen romances between two stars named Sidney). There is some silliness about fixing the roulette wheel with the aid of Stirling Hollaway, a scam which is exposed to an angry shipload of people when the captain deliberately beaches the yacht on an Island and things get very funny, peculiarly funny, indeed.The island, which features a very good Hawaiian band, is ruled by a feather bedecked, quite mad Mary Boland, famous for murdering her husbands and is attended by a man in tattered formal wear. Ned Sparks proposes to take the passengers hostage, strip them of everything and split the loot with the Queen but she intends to take it all, after murdering, with the assistance of her Thompson machine gun toting natives, everyone. Instead she becomes enamored of Blackmer, who plays the whole picture in white tie, to whom she proposes he become her king. He convinces her to let everyone go back to civilization as a more fitting punishment. Unfortunately she has had a bomb planted on the yacht. Fortunately she switches her affections to saxophone playing Stirling Hayden, her next "King", and Blackmer is able to get everyone off the boat in time. The yacht explodes. Back on the island everyone pairs off and behaves in a decidedly pre-code manner and everyone is libidinously happy. The End.This film belongs to a group of surrealist films very characteristic of the late twenties and early thirties like MILLION DOLLAR LEGS and just about anything with W.C. Fields or the Marx Brothers. Avant Garde Europeans and South Americans were very taken by these films so their influence was mainly felt by such artists as Jean Epstein, Dali, Bunuel, Cocteau and the Magico-Realists. Oh, did I mention this was a musical?