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Fantastic!

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Blistering performances.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Thus sumptuous Paramount art deco musical is almost a definitive pre code extravaganza and is on per with WONDERBAR and FASHIONS OF 1934 and TOP HAT as the glittering perfection of code- cusp risqué showgirl and nightclub sophisticated sexiness. Made at Paramount in late 1933 and clearly designed to outshine the WB Busby Berkeley extravaganzas, this one does it with nude showgirls, drug references, weapons, a slinky killer, murder in the ceiling and dripping blood, and big stage show numbers all crammed over the orchestra pit on the opening night of a big Broadway show. I was reminded of almost every Busby Berkeley film but clearly on a lower budget with the difference being made up by having spectacular costumes. In color this film would be an enduring musical of its time. In gorgeous B&W it still rates but one can see how colorful the costumes are even in monochrome. One startling song SWEET MARIJUANA manages the unparalleled feat of including nudity drugs murder and blood all on screen during the tune. There is a hilarious and nutty island mermaid number and a fantastic and simple art deco staging of COCKTAILS FOR TWO. This film clearly influenced THE GREAT ZIEGFELD made at MGM in 1936.

I just viewed MURDER AT THE VANITIES in the newly-released Universal Pre-Code set, and I was amazed at how much I enjoyed the vehicle end to end. Most of the other commentators have covered the story, a murder mystery within a musical, but I wanted to add a few additional notes. Brisson and Carlisle are relatively bland, compared to even most of the minor players, and neither one really seems to have the proper voice for what they're singing (Carlisle being a trained opera singer, Brisson a bit wobbly on some of his high and low notes). The great Victor McLaglen and Jack Oakie play well off each other, with an excellent sense of timing that keeps the ball rolling between musical numbers. Yes, Lucille Ball and Ann Sheridan are Vanities girls, but let's not forget the splendid jazz singer Ernestine Anderson in the "Ebony Rhapsody" number. Gail Patrick makes one of her early appearances, sounding a bit like Eve Arden; Patrick would go on to become the executive producer of the Perry Mason TV series. Then there's Jessie Ralph as the wardrobe mistress--you'll spot her also in David COPPERFIELD (as Aunt Peggoty) and THE BANK DICK. The music is very good--Brisson introducing the standard "Cocktails for Two" in two different scenes; "Sweet Marihuana" with barely clad peyote button girls in the background (blood dripping on one chorine's white skin was wonderfully chilling); the "Ebony Rhapsody," with Duke Ellington's Orchestra and a bevy of beautiful dancers, both black and white, mixing it up. And I believe this is one of the only early musicals to feature such a mix--and the costumes leave nothing to the imagination.

It's good to see that Vintage Film Buff have correctly categorized their excellent DVD release as a "musical", for that's what this film is, pure and simple. Like its unofficial remake, Murder at the Windmill (1949), the murder plot is just an excuse for an elaborate girlie show with Kitty Carlisle and Gertrude Michael leading a cast of super-decorative girls including Ann Sheridan, Lucy Ball, Beryl Wallace, Gwenllian Gill, Gladys Young, Barbara Fritchie, Wanda Perry and Dorothy White. Carl Brisson is also on hand to lend his strong voice to "Cocktails for Two". Undoubtedly the movie's most popular song, it is heard no less than four times. However, it's Gertrude Michael who steals the show, not only with her rendition of "Sweet Marijauna" but her strong performance as the hero's rejected girlfriend. As for the rest of the cast, we could have done without Jack Oakie and Victor McLaglen altogether. The only good thing about Oakie's role is his weak running gag with cult icon, Toby Wing. In fact, to give you an idea as to how far the rest of the comedy is over-indulged and over-strained, super-dumb Inspector McLaglen simply cannot put his hands on the killer even though, would you believe, in this instance it happens to be the person you most suspect. Director Mitch Leisen actually goes to great pains to point the killer out to even the dumbest member of the cinema audience by giving the player concerned close-up after close-up.

This is one of the most interesting old movies you will ever see.Its designed to shamelessly display what are billed as the most beautiful women in the world — excepting its star, Kitty Carlisle, who looks like a train wreck comparatively. There's no nudity in the modern sense, but its all about young bodies and refreshingly not large breasts.The form is peculiar. Its half a stage show — patterned after real shows by a real theatrical pimp. The other half is a murder mystery in which two deaths occur and are solved while the opening night show goes on.The mystery isn't much. There's no detecting involved and its purpose is to allow us to know a few characters, every one of them repellent in some way, except for the anchor of the thing. Every girlie movie has a girl that is the center of illusion and in this one its Toby Wing playing one of several dumb blond stereotypes, this one more of the Betty Boop type: squeaky and solicitous, ignorant of when she is being ignored or even laughed at.The mystery does involve some sinister Germans and Americans who take matters into their own hands. It was between the wars with the Germans, and Hitler was newly the "fuhrer." Its the show that's the interesting thing here. The numbers aren't as polished as you might expect, but they are among the most interesting you'll ever see.One is a song about sweet marijuana where the backdrop is seven peyote buttons played by nude girls in blossom bottoms.Another is very strange and makes sense if you note the antiGerman subtext. Its a battle of music between that great American invention of jazz (led by Duke Ellington himself) and some "German" old stuff, played weakly here. Its led by Franz Lizst, accompanied by ghostly and bloodless aristocrats. The American piece clearly wins, ending with a dance which is sort of a combination between ordinary stage choreography and black boogie woogie.Its the only time I know in that era where black and white women dancers dance together. And the black women are every bit as lovely. Its shocking for the time, this celebration of the American spirit of woman. It ends by the Lizst character machine-gunning the Americans, killing all.The first number is about the girls themselves, "where do they come from?" Its simply about where these lovelies originate and has them migrating from the east and the west through the doors marked with the famous (and quite real) motto; "through these doors pass the most beautiful girls in the world." They pass through the doors and are transformed into nearly nude fruits of the sea and packaged cosmetics for us (the male viewers) to consume. Its quite overt.But to me the most interesting visually was a number which had our haplessly inept and ugly couple on an island singing. They are surrounded by waves made of feathers, undulated by scores of women: all longtressed blonds. Since they are credited as "chlorines," I suppose it matters that they are artificially blond, more submissive perhaps.Its not photographed as well as it could have been, but its about as cinematic as you will get to this notion of vast pools of sexually available women, a sea of pulchritude. That it was set up in the previous number with women in vaginally opening clamshells, shows that the designer of this thing surely knew what he was doing.One of the girls was Beryl Wallace, an Austrian Jewess with whom the man behind this was in love. Lucille Ball is also in there too.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.