AllMovie

No one shall never probably know why RKO chose Raoul Walsh, of all people, to guide French opera diva Lily Pons through this lowbrow burlesque. Suffice it to say, neither Mr. Walsh nor screenwriters Gertrude Purcell and John Twist did Mademoiselle Pons any favors by having her decked out in bird feathers and pretending to be an African jungle girl named "Oogahunga" (or was it "Oogabunga"?). The poor girl looks positively dazed by it all and comes to life only when performing the mad scene aria from +Lucia di Lammermoor and a few other classical selections. In contrast, Jack Oakie as Pons' enterprising impresario and Edward Everett Horton as a perpetually perplexed opera patron seem to have been let in on the joke and perform accordingly. Not surprisingly, Hitting a New High (a title positively begging for a pun!) proved Lily Pons' final feature film.