I credit this film with some value, even though by today's standards it is pretty trite: Struggling dance team's wife is impatient for success. She is pretty (we are told) so is seduced by a moneyed nightclub magnate who sets her up in her own club, but with a new partner. She discovers that she is "nothing" without her husband and returns to him. The turning point is hard to catch, but it is supposed to be where she realizes that he values her for potential sex instead of the excellence of her dancing.
Along the way, we get some band numbers and dances. Supposedly this was a hit. Because it was early in the game AND a hit, I consider it essential watching for myself. At this point, movies were deciding what they might be, with serious balance between being a media for entertaining stage shows essentially song and dance and storytelling. I think it took more than ten years to work this out, this being the first of a genre of shows-within-show movies. You could almost graph the differing experiments, how they tried to emphasize one over the other or to integrate the two more intrinsically.
We still have reverb from this struggle today. It all started here, apparently.
There are no jokes. No sex or even cuddling. The performances are shot with stationary cameras from a distance. The two irresistible girls seem what today would be called "plain." Its almost like a film from another world.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
Along the way, we get some band numbers and dances. Supposedly this was a hit. Because it was early in the game AND a hit, I consider it essential watching for myself. At this point, movies were deciding what they might be, with serious balance between being a media for entertaining stage shows essentially song and dance and storytelling. I think it took more than ten years to work this out, this being the first of a genre of shows-within-show movies. You could almost graph the differing experiments, how they tried to emphasize one over the other or to integrate the two more intrinsically.
We still have reverb from this struggle today. It all started here, apparently.
There are no jokes. No sex or even cuddling. The performances are shot with stationary cameras from a distance. The two irresistible girls seem what today would be called "plain." Its almost like a film from another world.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.