HOLLYWOOD MYSTERY. Fanchon Royal Pictures, 1934. Originally released as Hollywood Hoodlum. June Clyde, Frank Albertson, José Crespo, Tenen Holtz, John Davidson. Directed by B. Reeves “Breezy” Eason.

   It is a mystery – if for the sake of the review, for this and nothing else – why bottom of the barrel movies like this exist and are distributed on DVD, and films that people really want to see are either available only through collector-to-collector conditions or cannot be found at all.

   At least it’s short, just over 50 minutes long, and at least the people making it seemed to be having a good time doing so. As hinted at above, there is very little mystery to this strictly Grade D movie, only the fact that the head of publicity for a small time movie outfit (Frank Albertson) gets the grand idea of persuading a director of a gangster film (John Davidson) to hire a real gangster as its star.

   Only thing is, the gangster (José Crespo) is no gangster, but the guy he socks in a nightclub really is. Much hilarity results, or it was supposed to have, and even so, it might have, if the plot really made any sense.

   I should of course mention June Clyde, who plays the leading lady in the film within the film. Like Frank Albertson and some of the other players, she had a long career in movies and TV, but as a bright spot on any of their careers, this wasn’t it.

   One additional warning: On the DVD you can easily find of this movie, the picture is so poorly cropped that in one scene with two people at either end of a table, you see the table but neither party to the right or left of the screen. It made me smile as much as anything I saw, and I’m almost embarrassed to say I saw any of it. Or that I’m writing this review of it.