This is a fairly cute old musical. I have a fascination with Burlesque and this story was one of several written by the Queen of Burlesque herself, Gypsy Rose Lee, though billed under her real name, Louise Hovick. The story concerns a burlesque performer named Doll Face who is rejected from legitimate musicals for being too uncultured. Her manager hires a smarmy intellectual author to ghostwrite her memoir but then grows jealous when the author starts to pay too much attention. The performances are quite good, considering that they actually got Perry Como, who famously insisted on only being in productions of "good taste", and Carmen Miranda. I had always heard the name (she's the lady in the fruit hat) but I never understood why she was famous. She is absolutely magnetic as The Nosey Best Friend, even if her accent is almost impenetrable.
Take a look at that picture and tell me if this screams "happy musical" to you. Me either.
So the movie is about an abusive ventriloquist, his long-suffering assistant, and his dummy. Contrary to what the DVD sleeve says, this is NOT about how the dummy becomes a manifestation of his darker urges. Instead, the dummy play the voice of reason and tolerance and the man himself is an arrogant asshole barely able to function in public. He achieves great fame through his absolute mastery of ventriloquism after his assistant leaves him but ends up going completely insane when he can't win her back.
Erich Von Stroheim looks like a Bond villain (in fact, he actually played the creepy-ass chauffeur in Sunset Boulevard) and this is definitely one of his lesser films. Avoid at all costs.
I love how the poster promises Technicolor but the movie is in b&w. That means I got screwed out of seeing all the pixels I was supposed to. Anyway, this is like Pirates of Penzance with a dude who's not a pirate meeting a girl and having to charm a town full of people.
Except this guy is a dance teacher from Boston who gets shanghaied onto a pirate ship to be a galley boy. He escapes in California but gets caught by the townspeople who are going to hang him until the Alcalde's daughter decides she wants to learn how to waltz. I would absolutely say pass on it, if it didn't have Frank Morgan as the Alcalde. He was the Wizard from The Wizard of Oz. It's weird because the character has almost all the same mannerisms, so it's like watching the Wizard pretending he's a Mexican municipal administrator named Salazar. Seeing as I don't know any other films Frank Morgan was in, it's interesting to see.
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