(80 mins.) Released 1929-10-07
Director: Rouben Mamoulian
Stars: Helen Morgan, Joan Peers, Fuller Mellish Jr., Jack Cameron
drama, musical
originally posted 13 Oct 2017 21:31
Back to 1929; I just bought this Mamoulian film. If owned a few weeks ago, it would have appeared here between Rio Rita and So Long Letty, although the general release wasn't until Jan '30 (initial release early Oct 1929).
I would contest this for the Musical genre by IMDb's own definition. But it has enough music to qualify for this list. It's a tragedy in a tawdry setting, with bad songs to match. Helen Morgan doesn't sing atop a piano (her signature); she is playing a character, a frowzy blonde burlesque singer/dancer.
The sound is poor, which may be a function of the age of the source material Kino used to create this DVD. But I also get the idea that the mic is too far from the performers at times. The camera moves a lot, probably more than other movies of the time. I can name 2 scenes where the camera "chases" a character who is moving: "Hitch" as he races down the hall from one girl's dressing room to Kitty's, and behind Kitty when she walks through her rooms to get the poison she takes. It's a good experiment, but makes me too aware of the camera.
Mamoulian uses shadows frequently, showing an off-screen character in silhouette, or echoing the character who is also on-screen. (Note, he also did this in Love Me Tonight (1932). Also used in both films: double exposure montages.)
Although the IMDb listing only shows filming locations at studios, I think several scenes were filmed on location: in a train station, on Brooklyn Bridge (although not for the dialog shot), tourist scenes in NYC.
When I first rated this 7, I had just seen it in a UCI film studies class. Perhaps the professor gave me more some more reasons to appreciate this than I remember. This viewing leaves me unimpressed. I would only recommend it if watched with another film of 1929 to contrast with the initial static films of the sound era, or back-to-back with Love Me Tonight and other Mamoulian films. It is not an enjoyable film, although the tragic ending is somewhat satisfying.
Paramount, dir. Mamoulian, 6
