Humphrey Bogart takes a rare stab at comedy in the show-biz screwball comedy Stand-In. But though Bogart demonstrates his effortless star power, Leslie Howard (best known as Ashley Wilkes in Gone 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 FetzerMore...
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