"Once in a Lifetime"

For a Universal film we certainly hear lots about Vitaphone in "Once in a Lifetime" (1932). At the beginning we get a couple shots of the Warner Hollywood standing in for the theatre in New York that ran "The Jazz Singer." 

 

 A closer look at the boxoffice. Sorry about the quality here. These shots were taken from a very murky version of the film that's on YouTube. That readerboard below the marquee noted that a Larry Ceballos revue was also on the program. 

See the pages on the Los Angeles Theatres site about the Warner Hollywood. It opened in 1928, got renamed the Hollywood Pacific in 1968 and triplexed in 1978. It's been boarded up since 2012. 

The film is based on the 1930 Broadway hit by Moss Hart and George S. Kauffman that satirized Hollywood in the period during its transition to talkies. Aline MacMahon, Jack Oakie and Russell Hopton are vaudevillians going broke who decide to head west to teach elocution to silent movie stars. Also featured are Sidney Fox, Louise Fazenda, Gregory Ratoff, Zasu Pitts, Gregory Gaye and Onslow Stevens. Russell Mack directed. The cinematography was by George Robinson.   

Ratoff as studio head Herman Gloguaer: "What did they have to go and make pictures talk for? Things were going along fine. You couldn't stop making money - even if you turned out a good picture you made money."

On IMDb: "Once in a Lifetime" 

 

 

 

Jack Oakie, Sidney Fox, Gregory Ratoff, Aline MacMahon and Russell Hopton at the studio. It's a still that appears on IMDb. 

 

 

"It's Colossal!" A lobby card for the film.