When she can't support her illegitimate child, an abandoned young woman puts her up for adoption and pursues a career as a torch singer.When she can't support her illegitimate child, an abandoned young woman puts her up for adoption and pursues a career as a torch singer.When she can't support her illegitimate child, an abandoned young woman puts her up for adoption and pursues a career as a torch singer.
Baby LeRoy
- Bobby, Dora's Baby at 1 Year
- (as Baby Le Roy)
Jean Acker
- Nightclub Patron
- (uncredited)
Bobbe Arnst
- Woman in Sally's Apartment
- (uncredited)
Carlena Beard
- Sally - the Little Black Girl
- (uncredited)
James Burke
- Taxicab Driver
- (uncredited)
- Directors
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe uncredited little black girl who plays "Sally the fan" whom Claudette Colbert's character visits is played by Carlena Beard, the younger sister of Matthew "Stymie" Beard of The Little Rascals.
- Quotes
Mimi Benton: Well, I'll tell you what happened to her. While you were touring China, she went through hell. It's a nice place, you must go there someday.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Complicated Women (2003)
- SoundtracksGive Me Liberty or Give Me Love
(1933)
Music by Ralph Rainger
Lyric by Leo Robin
Played during the opening credits and at the end
Sung by Claudette Colbert at a nightclub
Reprised by Claudette Colbert at a nightclub
Featured review
Colbert is great, the movie a clumsy production (there were even two directors)
Torch Singer (1933)
A hobbled movie if you expect something naturalistic and moving, but Claudette Colbert is so convincing and terrific she almost compensates. A Depression-era tale of an affair that produced a baby, and then the mother having to struggle alone trying and failing to raise it. It takes off from there, as Colbert as the mother makes good with her life in other ways. The baby of course is still in the back of her mind, and causes a couple of dramatic twists later on.
The plot is a huge contrivance, and so you have to jump in and see it as a kind of morality tale, packaged a little too neatly and with some comic and tragic episodes almost too forcefully inserted. It's all interesting and fun, though, and Colbert really is a versatile and heartfelt actress here.
The one thing she may not do so well for modern audiences is sing so well, and as the title suggests, this is a key part of the middle of the movie. The orchestras are great, and the parade of side characters rather convincing as we go along, however. The sudden reappearance of the father, and the rather neat coincidences that follow, were way too much for me to swallow, however, especially the patched-on ten second last scene, which could have at least had some honest drama to it. You'll see.
It's probably the ending most people wanted to see, however, and a justification of what had happened earlier (all of which is a kind of taboo just a year later when the Hays Code would have made an out-of-wedlock birth a more serious offense). I think it's handled here in a believable way, however, at first, so thank goodness it was finished before the artifice of the later 1930s took over these kinds of themes.
The movie also has some nice (if neatly packaged) insights to the crude beginnings of commercial radio, which was always live, and which amounted to some people standing in front of a microphone. This was much like television was in its first years after WWII, with live broadcasts the necessity. And Colbert sings her own songs in this movie, for better or for worse. A total period effort, in tone and in content.
A hobbled movie if you expect something naturalistic and moving, but Claudette Colbert is so convincing and terrific she almost compensates. A Depression-era tale of an affair that produced a baby, and then the mother having to struggle alone trying and failing to raise it. It takes off from there, as Colbert as the mother makes good with her life in other ways. The baby of course is still in the back of her mind, and causes a couple of dramatic twists later on.
The plot is a huge contrivance, and so you have to jump in and see it as a kind of morality tale, packaged a little too neatly and with some comic and tragic episodes almost too forcefully inserted. It's all interesting and fun, though, and Colbert really is a versatile and heartfelt actress here.
The one thing she may not do so well for modern audiences is sing so well, and as the title suggests, this is a key part of the middle of the movie. The orchestras are great, and the parade of side characters rather convincing as we go along, however. The sudden reappearance of the father, and the rather neat coincidences that follow, were way too much for me to swallow, however, especially the patched-on ten second last scene, which could have at least had some honest drama to it. You'll see.
It's probably the ending most people wanted to see, however, and a justification of what had happened earlier (all of which is a kind of taboo just a year later when the Hays Code would have made an out-of-wedlock birth a more serious offense). I think it's handled here in a believable way, however, at first, so thank goodness it was finished before the artifice of the later 1930s took over these kinds of themes.
The movie also has some nice (if neatly packaged) insights to the crude beginnings of commercial radio, which was always live, and which amounted to some people standing in front of a microphone. This was much like television was in its first years after WWII, with live broadcasts the necessity. And Colbert sings her own songs in this movie, for better or for worse. A total period effort, in tone and in content.
- secondtake
- Sep 23, 2011
- Permalink
Details
- Runtime1 hour 11 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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