ThisThis is a shocking movie. Al Jolson is not a performer who holds up well but his character eerily adumbrates the MC of "Cabaret." Isherwood's Berlin Stories hadn't been written at this time and this takes place in Paris, but the same sense of decadence reigns.
Kay Francis is cuckolding her older husband with gigolo Richard Cortez. Cortez is a nasty character and the dance partner at the title establishment of Dolores Del Rio.
Ms. Del Rio, one of the great beauties of movie history, is not served well by the makeup and hairstyling here. She looks like the Ann Miller of 2000. Francis is as chic as ever and has a thankfully small role -- almost a cameo.
Louise Fazenda as the wife in two American couples visiting France, is hilarious, doing everything she can to attract the boys. (Not, presumably, the two whom we see dancing together.) The dance number between Cortez and Del Rio is genuinely shocking. It's called a whip dance and he cracks a whip, like a lion tamer. It doesn't touch her, but she crawls on the floor responding to it. This movie has some of the raciest scenes of any between the end of the Code and Lina Wertmuller.
Alas, a scene near the end begins with Jolson in blackface and expands to include a whole group of supporting singers in blackface. This was a convention and one of specialties. I have seen it in movies made as recently as "Torch Song from the early 1950s, in which a blond Joan Crawford sings in blackface. That is risible; here, we have something grossly unappealing.
Kay Francis is cuckolding her older husband with gigolo Richard Cortez. Cortez is a nasty character and the dance partner at the title establishment of Dolores Del Rio.
Ms. Del Rio, one of the great beauties of movie history, is not served well by the makeup and hairstyling here. She looks like the Ann Miller of 2000. Francis is as chic as ever and has a thankfully small role -- almost a cameo.
Louise Fazenda as the wife in two American couples visiting France, is hilarious, doing everything she can to attract the boys. (Not, presumably, the two whom we see dancing together.) The dance number between Cortez and Del Rio is genuinely shocking. It's called a whip dance and he cracks a whip, like a lion tamer. It doesn't touch her, but she crawls on the floor responding to it. This movie has some of the raciest scenes of any between the end of the Code and Lina Wertmuller.
Alas, a scene near the end begins with Jolson in blackface and expands to include a whole group of supporting singers in blackface. This was a convention and one of specialties. I have seen it in movies made as recently as "Torch Song from the early 1950s, in which a blond Joan Crawford sings in blackface. That is risible; here, we have something grossly unappealing.