1h 14min | Comedy, Music | 24 April 1944
Director: William Nigh
Stars: Rosemary Lane, Johnny Downs, Ralph Morgan, Sheldon Leonard, Dave Fleischer
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037399/
watched on AmazonPrime, poor print; also on a megapack
Trocadero is a region in Spain, the site of a palace in France, and the concatenation of the initial T for Tony with his last name Rocadero? The last is this movie's explanation for the name of the nightclub, not either of the first 2. The real nightclub was a black tie French-inspired supper club; you decide.
You'd expect Sheldon Leonard + nightclub to mean he plays a gangster, but if he did, it escaped me. He's knowledgeable about nightspots and wants to invest some cash if they take his advice for updating their failing club. They do, and stumble on the new name to honor their deceased father, and away we go.
We get a fair number of songs performed, some with a little dancing, not all at the nightclub. The finale has 5 bands playing (10-20 members each, arranged in tiers onstage) and some of the singers who performed earlier. All of that is ok.
Nothing terrific here, much of the acting is flat, and the spaces/camera work leave me claustrophobic, although I've seen much worse. And it seems they used the fame of the supper club, but probably not its real history.
I have the 21 min short film Sunday Night at the Trocadero (1937) on the disc for A Night at the Opera (1935). Don't remember how the club looked in that.
Indie, distr. Republic; 5
