‘Our Lady of Decolletage’ Kay Francis stars in a late pre-Code pic that’s perfectly willing to give a pass to murder, prostitution, drunkenness, living in sin, gambling & police coverups, but drawing the line at gunrunning. That’s the game Kay’s smiley lover-boy, rotten Ricardo Cortez plays, and as the film starts, he's already in financial distress, taking it on the lam till he can raise dough for a new deal and leaving Francis in the lurch. That'd be a Rangoon lurch where Warner Oland’s anything-goes nightclub hires Francis as their new ‘available’ songtress at a white piano where she dazzles the menfolk and ‘sinks’ to new heights.* This first act all very von Sternberg/Dietrich before switching gears with Kay taking a slow boat to Mandalay for a reset and meeting disgraced doc Lyle Talbot on board. A broken man atoning for a surgery gone wrong under the influence, he’s drinking his way into the jungle where he plans on ending it all treating natives for the deadly Black Fever. Can love & sacrifice redeem these two? Maybe, but not with Cortez showing up in the adjoining cabin. Yikes! He’s still hot for Francis, still in hock to the big money men, still evading the police. The story’s something of a mess, but plenty effective moment-by-moment under Tony Gaudio’s darkly glamorous lensing, Kay changing hair-styles & outfits at a clip (one conservative number with a V-neck & decorative buttons an Orry-Kelly knockout) & Michael Curtiz’s typically muscular direction. All capped by one of the most outrageous Pre-Code endings imaginable. Four months later, Hollywood began enforcing the Production Code seriously. Kay Francis’s career never quite got over it.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: In the nightclub, Kay’s a sensation accompanying herself on a white grand, singing a Sammy Fain number, ‘When Tomorrow Comes.’ IMDb has Francis doing her own singing, but is she? Sounds a lot like the great Helen Morgan (of SHOW BOAT fame). More likely a Morgan imitator, but definitely not Francis.
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