... is another's lovely little film! I think I must have liked every 1929-1935 film I've seen Kay Francis in for one reason or another whatever character she was playing she was still playing Kay Francis. Mandalay is no exception and even as a murderous prostitute she should be the main reason to watch this, without her dignified elegance it would have been a very different film. Her private life may have a series of bi-sexual conquests and abortions but on screen she was the epitome of good breeding if occasionally bittersweet.
In steamy Rangoon the girlfriend of petty gun-runner Ricardo Cortez is abandoned to the tender mercies of Warner Oland wanting a "hostess" to run his nightclub. As sinister Oland eloquently says of sordid Cortez "it was a question of you or a cargo of guns and you lost". This naturally turns her against all men, using them to eventually run away from them to the perhaps unfortunately named Mandalay and taking up with a heavily drinking doctor along the way. Director Michael Curtiz's prints are all over this expert potboiler it always makes me chuckle when near the beginning Cortez explains to Francis that they're going to Nick's Place " one always ends up in Nick's" Claude Rains was merely paraphrasing in Casablanca after all! Mind you, glorious as she was Ingrid Bergman couldn't hope to out-match Francis's dress- or hat-sense. For me the money shots are of her with Cortez at the beginning (with or without lotus flowers), and later on the bed lighting her cigarette plotting revenge. I can't understand previous comments about her getting away with it at the end earlier hunky doctor Lyle Talbot had told her clearly there was only a 1 in 100 chance of surviving the jungle where the pair were planning to go, in other words a 99% chance of dying from malaria. Better odds than hanging though!
Although this was perhaps not the type of film in which she could murmur "Divine" to someone imho it's still a pretty divine film to watch - nothing heavy to report on, simply 64 minutes of pleasure. Also must be a must for Pre-Code cinema fans.
In steamy Rangoon the girlfriend of petty gun-runner Ricardo Cortez is abandoned to the tender mercies of Warner Oland wanting a "hostess" to run his nightclub. As sinister Oland eloquently says of sordid Cortez "it was a question of you or a cargo of guns and you lost". This naturally turns her against all men, using them to eventually run away from them to the perhaps unfortunately named Mandalay and taking up with a heavily drinking doctor along the way. Director Michael Curtiz's prints are all over this expert potboiler it always makes me chuckle when near the beginning Cortez explains to Francis that they're going to Nick's Place " one always ends up in Nick's" Claude Rains was merely paraphrasing in Casablanca after all! Mind you, glorious as she was Ingrid Bergman couldn't hope to out-match Francis's dress- or hat-sense. For me the money shots are of her with Cortez at the beginning (with or without lotus flowers), and later on the bed lighting her cigarette plotting revenge. I can't understand previous comments about her getting away with it at the end earlier hunky doctor Lyle Talbot had told her clearly there was only a 1 in 100 chance of surviving the jungle where the pair were planning to go, in other words a 99% chance of dying from malaria. Better odds than hanging though!
Although this was perhaps not the type of film in which she could murmur "Divine" to someone imho it's still a pretty divine film to watch - nothing heavy to report on, simply 64 minutes of pleasure. Also must be a must for Pre-Code cinema fans.