Bright Lights (1930)

Directed by Michael Curtiz. Starring Dorothy Mackaill, Frank Fay, Noah Beery, James Murray, Daphne Pollard, Inez Courtney, Tom Dugan.

Slack, humdrum backstage musical from the early talkie period, told through flashback by a singer/actress (Mackaill) retiring at the top of her game for love…or is it money? Hard to take seriously, and hard to take at all with its lackluster songbook and dull leading man (Frank Fay). Pre-Code crime and romantic melodrama elements are indifferently assembled by director Michael Curtiz. You’d think a movie where Dorothy Mackaill sings a tune called, “I’m Crazy for Cannibal Love”, can’t be bad, but here we are. Also known by the less generic but more misleading alternate title of Adventures in Africa. John Carradine makes his film debut in a bit part.

39/100