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The deserted street abruptly brimming with saltimbanques is merely the first trick out of Rouben Mamoulian's hat, a pirouetting camera and free-flowing emotionalism keep the razzmatazz going. High and low angles at the burlesque house, from the balcony a vibrating square not unlike a movie screen and from the orchestra pit a line of pudgy chorines where Helen Morgan reigns as hoochie-coochie queen. The daughter born backstage gets a convent education, she comes back a pious ingénue (Joan Peers) and tries to stay away from the trade, but the tawdry vigor of vaudeville, "it does something to a girl." A kaleidoscopic élan that leaves no space unfilled, Mamoulian's approach literally draws a diagonal line across the screen to split Morgan's Diva Dolorosa and her two-timing beau (Fuller Mellish Jr.), dollying in and out for transitions, cutting from face to face like a greasepaint Eisenstein. The cad walks off the edge of the frame during a spat and suddenly it's a shadow play, the progression of a poisoned cup prompts a horror-movie rehearsal for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Beyond the supersonic cacophony of music-hall patter, honking cars and yapping dogs, the affecting stillness of a novice's shy courtship with a sailor (Henry Wadsworth) or a mother-daughter embrace in a darkened room. (Virginal glimpses of Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan subway stations lend a documentary contrast to the stylization.) 42nd Street, Stella Dallas, The Clock... In the middle of the frantic the-show-must-go-on climax, the fallen trouper sprawled like a detail out of Toulouse-Lautrec. "See you in show business," a salute not lost on the young innovator newly arrived in Hollywood. Cinematography by George Folsey. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |