Rise and fall pictures were very popular in the 1930s. I mean films depicting the rise and fall of leading characters like Susan Lennox or Anna Karenina or Mata Hari or Tom Powers or Little Caesar. But even more popular were the Rise and fall and rise again brigade of which this is a top example. It has the benefit of an especially strong script. I must admit, though, that I'm a sucker for films with a theatrical setting. And when that theatrical background is as atmospherically created as it is here, then I take my hat off to all the artists involved, starting off with the director, the photographer, the orchestra, the production designer et al, and going right through to the associate producer.
Mervyn LeRoy's direction was generally geared to a far more inventive style at Warner Bros than in his staid years at MGM. Here I heartily commend his naturalistic use of on-stage dialogue to complement the back-stage action and I love the idea of showing the blackmailer (Barton MacLane) in silhouette. LeRoy's handling of the many crowd scenes is equally as deft as his depiction of the picture's more intimate moments, and he sent me to seventh heaven with his brilliant contrasts of theaters high and low, legitimate to burlesque, Broadway to Skid Row.
Kay Francis gives the performance of her career. Stella Parish enables her to encompass not only a wide range of emotions but a broad range of acting styles. I'm pleased to report that she is more than equal to the challenge. She brings off the many-faceted Stella with such panache and perfection, it's a shame she was not able to share this aspect of her talent with similar wide-ranging roles on other occasions. In the course of this picture, we see her as a gracious yet aloof leading lady, and as a sensitively romantic heroine, and in a mind-blowing character role. Plus her totally realistic portrayals of the various roles she enacts on stage.
Ian Hunter too rises to the heights with a more rewarding part than usual. Almost always he plays uninterestingly stuffy, self-righteous characters, but here he's cast in what must be the only totally unsympathetic role of his career. He conveys with great insight the coldness, heartlessness, ruthlessness and deceitful hypocrisy of his Keith Lockridge. On the other hand, Paul Lukas has only a small part to play-which is just as well. At best, he's no more than adequate and makes no attempt whatever to grasp his dramatic opportunities. Despite Lukas, however, this movie still rates 100% in my book!
Mervyn LeRoy's direction was generally geared to a far more inventive style at Warner Bros than in his staid years at MGM. Here I heartily commend his naturalistic use of on-stage dialogue to complement the back-stage action and I love the idea of showing the blackmailer (Barton MacLane) in silhouette. LeRoy's handling of the many crowd scenes is equally as deft as his depiction of the picture's more intimate moments, and he sent me to seventh heaven with his brilliant contrasts of theaters high and low, legitimate to burlesque, Broadway to Skid Row.
Kay Francis gives the performance of her career. Stella Parish enables her to encompass not only a wide range of emotions but a broad range of acting styles. I'm pleased to report that she is more than equal to the challenge. She brings off the many-faceted Stella with such panache and perfection, it's a shame she was not able to share this aspect of her talent with similar wide-ranging roles on other occasions. In the course of this picture, we see her as a gracious yet aloof leading lady, and as a sensitively romantic heroine, and in a mind-blowing character role. Plus her totally realistic portrayals of the various roles she enacts on stage.
Ian Hunter too rises to the heights with a more rewarding part than usual. Almost always he plays uninterestingly stuffy, self-righteous characters, but here he's cast in what must be the only totally unsympathetic role of his career. He conveys with great insight the coldness, heartlessness, ruthlessness and deceitful hypocrisy of his Keith Lockridge. On the other hand, Paul Lukas has only a small part to play-which is just as well. At best, he's no more than adequate and makes no attempt whatever to grasp his dramatic opportunities. Despite Lukas, however, this movie still rates 100% in my book!