Edmund Lowe

(On Cable TV, May 2022) Hollywood history is littered with passable films that work rather well but don’t leave any lasting memories. Mad Holiday, caught in-passing from a rare TCM broadcast because I have a fondness for films about films, is a good example of the form – it’s practically obscure today, not exactly a good movie and yet you can watch it and feel as if you’ve gotten a decent deal for your time. (It also clocks in at 71 minutes, which helps make it feel like time not wasted.)  It features Edmund Lowe as an actor tired of being pigeonholed as a detective in a popular series of mystery movies (Mad Holiday opens by depicting the conclusion of his most recent film, then switching to off-camera complaints by the actor), who decides to go on a cruise to clear his mind. Alas, trouble follows – and our fake detective must become a real detective, uneasily allied with the author of the mystery novels he dislikes so much. Zasu Pitts shows up in a familiar ditzy role. Otherwise, though, Mad Holiday is competent in the way the Hollywood studios were getting by the 1930s in churning out acceptable entertainment to fill theatre screens. It’s mildly entertaining, the dialogue isn’t too bad, heroine Elissa Landi is quite cute, and it crams a surprising amount of plot in its short running time. (Some of this breakneck pacing is very intentional, as it prevents viewers from thinking too much about what’s happening. For modern audiences, it will distract from the regrettable yellowface depiction of an Asian character.)  Having an actor team up with the author of the novels he’s bringing to the screen is just metafictional enough to be interesting, and director George B. Seitz’s style is unobtrusive enough. No one will ever recommend Mad Holidays as a good example of anything, but it can certainly be watched well enough, which is a distinction we can’t necessarily give to much-better-known films.