An odd little pre-code number, probably most notorious for having a Busby Berkeley-esque little number all about Marijuana (that isn't as much fun as it seems - as far as I could tell it seemed to imply that it's a hallucinogen). The plot is that murders are committed and solved(!) in the course of the show (which is one of those ornate song-and-dance numbers that early 30's movies are always showing).
The film begins with Jack Ellery, the person running the show for the night (normally he's the assistant, but the boss is away for some reason, so this is his big break) arguing with a big dumb cop (Bill Murdock) who wants tickets to the show to impress his girl, but Jack kicks him out and he ends up back at the station, sulking, having lost the girl as a result. Jack is frantic because his two leads are late. Cut to the leading man, Eric Lander (who has an accent, because the actor is Danish, and, like all of the cast, is nobody famous - although he was in early Hitchcock The Manxman), and the leading lady (Ann Ware) practicing a number in his apartment, giddy with the knowledge that they will get married that night (in New Jersey, for some reason). They head to the show
and Jack meets them at the curb and gets the news of the impending nuptials. That news spreads like wildfire and enrages Rita Ross, who is obviously bad news given how awfully she treats the theater dogsbody Norma, a frail, harmless (and apparently a bit simple) girl, who is besotted with Eric but not in a way that makes her jealous of Ann, and in fact she thinks the marriage is wonderful. Rita, on the other hand, has clearly had designs on Eric, but has also been stealing things from his apartment. Eric is on to her, though, and hired Sadie Evans, female gumshoe, to check up on her. Sadie meets with him and reveals that Rita has written to the Vienna police who have forwarded a picture of a famous actress of years before who is wanted for murder. This turns out to be the company seamstress, Mrs. Smith,
who is also Eric's mother! Who is in the room, and knows that Sadie knows who she is! Then Eric confronts Rita, who says that the wedding better be off. But the show must go on! Only thing is, during the next performance, once of the dancing girls (there is a sign above the stage door that says "the most beautiful girls in the world pass through this door," and in an early joke, the door opens and a particularly hatchet-faced old charwoman comes out) feels something land on her shoulder, and it's blood! And Sadie is found high up in the ceiling of the theater, up with all the ropes for the scenery. Oddly, she's drunk acid, so it looks like a suicide, but then when the doctor examines her, he finds a hatpin shoved through her heart - a hatpin that both Mrs. Smith and Rita had access to,
as Bill Murdock discovers, because now he's been called in by Jack. Meanwhile someone is terrorizing Ann by breaking the mirror in her door and dropping sandbags down on her. And the show goes on! And look - there's DUKE ELLINGTON!
In a number that ends when a guy (Homer Boothby (played by the original Ming the Merciless!), who is an ally of Mrs. Smith, sworn to protect her secret) sprays the whole company with a machine gun. But he's firing blanks, right? But then, why does Rita drop dead with a bullet in her? Murdock thinks he knows - it's Lander or Mrs. Smith, for sure. But what does poor, simple Norma have to say about it?
This is part of the Mitchell Leisen Collection on the Criterion Channel, and let's just say it's not a patch on Easy Living or Remember the Night, or even Hands Across the Table. But some of the numbers are pretty catchy. Oh, and the running gag of the squeaky-giggle blonde chorus girl who keeps trying to tell Jack something pays off at the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment