Customer Reviews

Applause

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Applause is an important film in the history of the movies. It is one of the first talking pictures which really moves. Rather than using long static shots, Rouben Mamoulian directed the film in such a way that it is full of camera movement. Moreover the film uses interesting camera perspectives from above and below and is imaginatively edited. Many early talkies look like filmed stage plays and are often hard to enjoy. Applause is not only important it is also enjoyable. This is because Mamoulian uses his imaginative direction to tell a moving and involving story.

The film begins in the 1910s with burlesque star Kitty Darling (Helen Morgan) giving birth. She decides to send her daughter April to a convent. When April (Joan Peers) returns as an adult, she is pursued by Kitty's sleazy husband and against her will forced into the world of burlesque. Her mother is now a fading star and needs her, but she is repelled by the low class theatre lifestyle. April meets a clean-cut sailor and is faced with a choice, whether to go with him or remain with her mother in a job she hates. Mamoulian tells the story in a realistic way. Far from glamorising the dancing women, he accentuates all their flaws. He shows close-ups of women with gold teeth, unshapely legs and rumpled stockings. The dancing in the film is often mediocre as if Mamoulian is intent on showing that these women are just going through the motions; that they are dancing only because they need the money. Applause is not like later musicals where everyone sings and dances perfectly. It portrays the bottom rung of the entertainment ladder and tries to portray it accurately with all its faults.

The acting in Applause is on the whole very good. There are some scenes where the acting is rather stiff and stilted, but generally the performances are naturalistic. Helen Morgan does well as the aging Kitty. Hers is a courageous performance, sympathetic and moving. It is great to have the chance to hear the legendary Broadway star sing her signature tune "What Wouldn't I do for that Man?" Joan Peers is delightful. Her romantic scenes are sincere and believable. Her sweet, shy performance is one of the highlights of the film.

The print on the Kino DVD is very good. It seems to be complete and has only a few tiny scratches and nicks. The photography is clear and sharp with good image detail. Unfortunately the soundtrack is much less good. The problem is not so much with hiss and crackle as that the sound is at times indistinct. It is often, especially at the start of the film, difficult to hear all the dialogue. It is a pity that the sound quality is rather poor, but the story is never hard to follow and the film remains wonderfully enjoyable. The DVD has a good number of extras, including some clips of Morgan singing and galleries of production stills and promotional material. It should be enjoyed by anyone who is interested in early sound film and the beginnings of the movie musical.

This nearly l00 year-old movie is still a fascinating excursion into the dark side of the Jazz Age. Made in l929 by wunderkind Rouben Maumoulian, the movie is often so seamy and dark and brutal that you still cringe. Helen Morgan has to be admired for allowing herself to play someone so repulsively weak and cringing. You see her at the turn of the century as hot little Kitty Darling, burlesque performer. She performs with a stable of "beef-trust" gals--genuine over-the-top burlesque dancers--who are all fat, sloppy and so unattractive you wonder if even the bottom of the barrel burlesque houses would have hired them. During this segment, Mamoulian lets you have it between the eyes: a montage of shots of sweating, broken-tooth lechers and bored, exhausted looking women with wrinkled tights and enormous thighs and rumps. Joan Peers portrays the innocent, convent bred daughter who leaves her cocoon and sees her mother on stage for the first time. When "Applause" was first released in late l929, the reaction was definitely ambilavent. Even then, critics and movie goers were turned off by the relentlessly down-beat tempo. Many were hoping to see a glamorous Helen Morgan, the radiant star of the Broadway smash, "Show Boat." What they saw was a flabby, weak looking entertainer who sported a head of bleached curls throughout the movie. You have to wonder why even a weak a character as Kitty Darling would tolerate a boyfriend as sleazy as the one she clings to throughout the movie. Still, this is a fascinating look at what the just emerging "talkers" could produce. Cameras were generally still frozen into place because of that new fangled gadget--the microphone. Mamoulian moves the camera all over the place and creates striking scenes of dramatic lighting and shadows. Unfortunately, this movie did nothing for careers of its talented cast. Helen Morgan made only a few more movies and Joan Peers, who plays her daughter and received glowing reviews, vanished off the radar screen.

Rouben Mamoulian was one of the great innovators in film. This story of an aging burlesque queen, her daughter, and her sleazy and amoral husband-manager ought to be a cheap, silly melodrama, given the script.

But under Mamoulian's stunning direction, and with Helen Morgan giving a devastating, unflinching performance as the pathetic yet ultimately noble burlesque queen--a woman completely lacking in self-esteem but who is willing to sacrifice everything to protect her daughter---it packs a surprising punch.

Mamoulian focuses on the lurid and grotesque side of burlesque, but rather than making you turn away in disgust, his direction, combined with Morgan's willingness to be vulnerable and needy, make this painfully compelling to watch. Because of Mamoulian's visual style, which was way ahead of what anyone else was doing at the time, and the story's sexual frankess, the whole film seems very modern. There is some amazing location shooting in 1929 New York.

Kino's transfer is about as good as it could possibly be given the film's age and relative obscurity, and there are some very interesting extras. While some dialogue in the early parts of the film is impossible to understand, this seems to have been unfixable: Mamoulian knew that if he wanted the camera to move as much he did, the sound from the movement of the large cameras (which were all that were available at that time) would make it impossible to hear some dialogue. He decided that his visuals were more important, and in the particular scenes in which this occurs, I think he was right.

This film is one of the early masterpieces of the sound era. It holds up extraordinarily well. Start watching it. After five minutes, you'll be hooked in a way that few films manage.

HELEN MORGAN [looking somewhat like Goldie Hawn in 'Death Becomes Her' - before the transformation] shines as the burning out Star [somewhat along the lines of a weaker Madame Rose - who made it to burlesque - but not Broadway] - tied to 'heel' Fuller Mellish Jr. with saintly daughter [Joan Peers]- who brings new meaning to 'the Show Must Go On!' - quite a transformation for this very, very talented gal [strikingly like Carrie Fisher]- Henry Wadsworth as Tony, the Young Sailor brings a breath of wholesome air to this shade tale of burlesque on the skids - brilliantly envisioned and conceived by ROUBEN MAMOULIAN - who certainly went on to bigger, bigger and better things - BUT this one's a real find.

PITY that the existing copy of somewhat damaged [like most of the cast ..... ] but still quite worth watching over and over again.

GREAT CAMERA-WORK - rivalling the world-weary Cabaret girls in 'Blue Angel' - never before have we seen SUCH a large and tired chorus line of gals - and fittingly so - Grandmamas possibly to Fosse's unshaven KitKatClub girls of CABARET.

Bit of a downer - one can see why this one did not quite work - but Helen Morgan is quite unforgettable - so's the rest - especially the very contemporary HENRY WADSWORTH [shades of Brad Pitt here....]

Movie also features great vintage shots of Manhattan's sky line and sky-scrapers circa 1929.

Made in 1929, this film was directed by Robert Mamoulian and features some pioneering camera work. Specifically, the static camera of other 1929 films is absent here. Mamoulian does some of this by shooting part of the picture silent with sound dubbed over it, such as in the scene where Kitty first arrives in New York and the camera follows her line of sight as she looks around the hustle and bustle of Grand Central Station. In scenes with lots of motion that have dialogue, Mamoulian has the players walking away from the camera so he can dub in the dialogue unsynchronized to the players' actual speech. If you didn't know how he did this, you wouldn't notice it.

If you are expecting to see Helen Morgan the torch singer doing the same type of act she did for Ziegfeld in his Follies, you'll be disappointed. Instead, be prepared to see Helen Morgan the actress in this one. Here Helen Morgan plays Kitty Darling, a woman of burlesque whose husband is sent to the electric chair for killing a man in a fit of jealousy. Kitty gives birth to their daughter, April, at about the same time. Convinced by a friend that the burlesque backstage is no place for a child to grow up, Kitty sends April to a convent school in Wisconsin. She remains there from age 5 to age 17.

When April returns home she finds her mother's world in sharp contrast to the peace of the convent. Plus, Kitty has taken up with a younger man. He is a parasite who is two and three timing her and soaking up what money she has. He tries to put the moves on April, but with no success. Kitty dealing with the end of her career and both her private and professional humiliation is hard to watch. Morgan gained weight and donned an unkempt blonde wig just for this part, and her acting is superb. Do realize that much of the film focuses on April, Kitty's daughter. Joan Peers was the actress playing April, and this was her first credited screen role. She handles the part quite well, but by 1931 her career in films was over.

There are a few extra features on the DVD:
* An interview with Helen Morgan after her 1933 marriage.
* A short speech by Mamoulian from 1986 on the 50th anniversary of the Director's Guild of America which he helped found.
* An excerpt from 1929's "Glorifying the American Girl" in which Helen Morgan sings.
* Some text entries on the correlation of the novel "Applause" and the film.
* A newspaper article from 1929 in which the author has interviewed director Robert Mamoulian entitled "The Camera is the Thing".
* An image gallery

By the way, the video quality is excellent and the audio is fine too. It is necessary to turn up the volume a little during some outdoor or crowd scenes that have dialogue. However, there is no hissing and crackling in the audio, nor is the sound of shoes clomping around and jewelry clanging in competion with speech as in many other early sound films.

Rouben Mamoulian created a masterpiece in Applause, a movie that studies the dark, seamy and sleazy side of show business burlesque. The reviewers are right; Mamoulian makes it clear that this burlesque show won't exactly attract high society: his close up shots of the dancing girls with gold teeth who are not very slender highlight the sleazy elements of the burlesque side of show business and the lecherous men in the audience don't exactly seem like a "soft-sell" crowd either. Indeed, as one reviewer writes you still cringe at the brutality with which the burlesque girls are treated by both the bosses and their audience; their life is full of degradation and rough, hard work as they wish to lead better lives.

This desire for a better life gets its spotlight in Kitty Darling's character, played so ably by the great Helen Morgan. Kitty becomes inextricably tied down to the world of burlesque. However, when Kitty's daughter April is born, Kitty wishes April could lead a better life. Therefore Kitty sends April to a convent with a little prodding from one of her not so loyal men friends, Hitch Nelson, who is played by Fuller Mellish Jr.

Eventually money runs out and Kitty's daughter April, now eighteen or so, leaves the expensive convent school with its sheltered ways of life. April comes to New York to live with her mother Kitty and Hitch. However, although mother and daughter love each other very much, a reconciliation with total honesty may prove difficult. And what will happen after April meets the clean-cut man of her dreams just as her mother Kitty's career and personal life become all undone? A few plots twists later as you watch the film and you will get your answer. However, there will be no spoilers here, folks; you'll have to watch the movie to know how it all works out!

The cinematography is excellent; the camera angles reflect forethought and the camera moves along with the characters, even fading in and out to focus on only certain characters in one scene. Excellent! The black and white stays fairly sharp for the film's age but the sound is not as clear as you would experience in the movie theaters of today.

The DVD offers a few bonuses: direction Rouben Mamoulian gives a brief commentary on the film in retrospect; Helen Morgan sings a song with her real life husband and Helen sings yet another song from another movie which was produced in 1929, the same year that Applause came out in theaters.

I highly recommend this film for film buffs who want to enjoy excellent performances by very capable actors including the famous Helen Morgan. Applause provides us with excellent examples of the camera being used as a tool that moves about instead of being stationery; this in and of itself remains noteworthy in film history as Applause was one of the earliest films to use the camera this way.

Great job, everyone!

whenever i have to prepare for a production of 'cabaret' or 'chicago', i make it a point to refer to 'applause'. the arts camp i work at will be doing 'chicago' and i'm choreographing it. i will be driving my cabin mate nuts with it because i will watch it and other musicals of roxie's time a lot!

mamoulian was a maverick. it is hard to get the uninformed to appreciate what he was doing because there have been so many advances in film since 1929. but think of what sound did to slow movies down to a creeeping crawl at that point. and how this film has scenes that move and sweep along. the camera angles on many of the shots are arresting and they help to push you into that seedy milieu of kitty and april's world.

then, there's that wonderful, heart in the throat performance from helen morgan. she really does some astonishing work with the character, especially at the end. she would never be as good on film as she was in this film.

but mainly, though i enjoy morgan's work, i like to look at the dance steps of the 1920s and i like to see how they were set. then it's a good mix as i combine them with what people expect to see. and the style. and the design. and the capture of a pre-depression era manhattan. then i get back to morgan again and it's time for another enthusiastic viewing of a great film and a great time capsule of 1920s style girlie show.

Applause seems like it would be an early musical, but in reality it is more of a drama. There are no memorable songs and performing on a stage is really only a backdrop. Other than a few shimmys here and there, we see basically nothing of the women on stage. What we do see is Helen Morgan as a small time berlesque actress named Kitty Darling in a specialty show who has a baby out of wedlock. Because of the way she lives her life, she sends her daughter away to a convent to go to school, but before long her daughter April (Joan Peers) comes back and is reunited with her mother. Kitty's lover urgers April to enter show business, but it repulses her. Instead, she finds a sweet young man, a sailor who wants to marry her.

There are plenty of conflicts in this film and the overall mood is dismal. The chorus girls are ugly painted dancers, unglamorous and pathetic. Kitty explains that just because you wiggle a little to make some money, it doesn't mean you're a bad person, but it does prove to be a sad existence, especially when your time is up. The film is a commentary on an industry that the world loved and still does love. Because of this, it is timeless.

The camerawork is revolutionary for this time period. In early talkies, there are more often than not static cameras and bad sound quality. The sound isn't perfect, but the moving camera shots that don't switch from angle to angle provide an interesting look into the characters and their lives. It also makes up for the lack of technology elsewhere.

Also included on this disk are some interesting extra features. We hear Morgan sing her signature "What I Wouldn't Do For That Man" in two clips, a video and written interview with director Rouben Mamoulian, and censorship files detailing which parts of the movie were considered to be objectionable and were ejected from many prints.

Excellent DVD presentation of a great early musical with great extras. Hopefully, Kino will continue with more of these early talkies. Universal just lets their own films, and the Paramount library, rot away in their vaults.

A "tear-jerker" (before the Hayes office took effect), but surprisingly well-done,with some unexpected storylines ...Helen Morgan must be one of the most under-utilized talents in movie history. A natural.Simple, affecting. A small gem.
The film is worth seeing , even 'tho it's a bit hurky-jerky in it's editing, for its subject matter and the way in which much of it was dealt with at the earlier part of "talkie" history. Unexpectedly complex, for the time.