User Reviews

. . . should join picture frames, pop tarts and pot holders on department store sales shelves during OVER THE COUNTER. Certainly, making "Infants to go" the Blue Light Special on Aisle Five could reduce or eliminate the risk of "stretch marks" for preening Tinsel Town Prime Donna's hankering for tots of their own. Also avoided would be the peril of "morning sickness," a malady known to interfere with early A.M. film-shooting schedules. Since no right-thinking guy wants to be anchored down by marriage to one of these Big Screen "Anybody's" gals, being able to purchase ready-made tykes could provide the sort of maternity-in-name-only PR boost that so many "starlets" crave. Just remember: No wire hangers!

If you're into the sometimes just-plain-weird pre-code humor, this is a short for you. (And if you don't know what I'm talking about but get a chance to see it, do so...just to see what Hollywood was capable of in 1930.)

What follows isn't really a spoiler, but I sort of liked not knowing what it was all about when I saw it...good surprises.

Anyway, the son of department store owner replaces the regular sales girls with chorus girls...and song and dance wackiness ensues!!! Wives can now check their husbands (like they would their hat) to shop husband-free, which leads to a fantastic song and dance between the chorus girls and the men. And the new indoor sport is putting the best female shoppers in the ring to go after that one great sale item. Yea, it's sexist, and it's sexy innuendo all they way, and nothing like would ever be seen again once The Hayes Office came along.

This short film is filled to the brim with overt double entendre sexuality. The viewer is never more than half a minute away from a dozen scantily clad chorus girls hanging onto a rising phallus or a suggestive song and dance number mocking the average housewife and her attempts at seducing their libidinous husbands while shopping through the Drake Women's Underwear Department.

It's difficult to find the exact moment where this short film goes over the top, perhaps it is the rising phallus, but it could be the chorus girl who is bent over awaiting the thumb fingerprint of a blindfolded husband…please, don't ask.

No reason to get bogged down in the plot of the film, just enjoy the effort put forth by everyone involved. It's a little film, but a very sexy one at that. The film is titillating and fun, but most of all it's fun. And unlike one of the best lines in the film uttered by a very big and older housewife while grabbing her husband away from one of the younger looking nymphs, "A great big sofa may give more comfort than a chair", this film is that chair, and really, you might find rocking back and forth in a chair very comforting.

Sure, Macy's has Broadway shows performing outside the entrance to their Herald Square store every Thanksgiving. But imagine if you went inside, and got to see a musical show while having a coffee or just taking a rest from your holiday shopping. I would certainly spend more than I do on an annual basis in department stores if I could do that. That is the premise of this delightful color short from MGM where department store owner Sidney Toler (aka Charlie Chan), is told by tattletale Franklin Pangborn that his son (Emerson Treacy) has turned part of the store into just that - a Broadway theatre for his desire for chorus girls and production numbers. This is a delightful little short that never ceases to be entertaining, featuring over the head shots that later became Busby Berkeley's trademark. It's more music then plot, but why does that matter when what is there is just so delightfully produced. This is forgotten gem that deserves to be rediscovered and I am so glad that is this on the Warner Archive Collection of musical shorts from MGM's golden age.

This film is a pre-code two tone technicolor metro short film from 1932. It is about a department store owner's son who put a bunch of chorus girls in the lobby and then the department store owner's supervisor on his son snitches on him and his father takes a look. Then the son says how great and marvelous these ladies are and then the ladies sing and dance with lots of skin showing. Later in the film, it shows husbands checking in with the ladies and starts to play with them. Then the green dressed black haired lady starts strolling and tries to seduce these husbands while they are drinking/smoking. However, the fat lady suspects something is up with his husband so she abuses her husband for playing with the girls and unchecks her husband. Then after that, the son creates a theatrical play like entertainment. He puts the husbands' wives into a horde and they start to chase at the items that are on sale. Then after that, the audience starts singing and moving their hands. Then more singing and dancing starts kicking in. In the end, the father approves the son's chorus girls in the department store section. This film is one of the best short films I've seen in my lifetime. It shows a bunch of beautiful, hot ladies and well dressed people unlike today that is very boring with jeans, no hats, t shirts, and casual style with hair no slick back taped back and beards. It shows a bunch of chorus girls singing, other women showing the 1932 fashion styles, and performances. This short film is NOT boring and is very entertaining. It shows how normal people were unlike today with transgender, gay, lesbian, 63 other genders, mentally ill people, etc... being normalized in society. Also, this short film is probably number 3 in my top 10 best short films list. Ignore those liberals, offended people who are offended by this short because it shows fat women are not attractive and unhealthy. Also, they find everything offensive, that is another reason to watch this short since they are censoring stuff.