You expect Grade-Z movie whiz Edgar G. Ulmer to pull off shabby, minor-key nihilistic pulp like DETOUR, his classic film noir released just before this. (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/09/detour-1945.html) What you don’t expect on the tiny PRC Poverty Row budgets he worked under is a splashy, nightclub musical noir with multiple storylines interwoven behind six musical acts. All in just over an hour? That’s the task set in this enterprising genre mash-up covering a cash strapped investor wooing a wealthy old crone; a killer out on bail and a witness/performer who could put him back behind bars (and there’s a hired hitman hanging around to finish the job); a fresh divorcée popping a handful of sleeping pills when the man she’s long loved pulls back; powder room tête-à-têtes between crises; and more! It’s GRAND HOTEL in a Nightclub, once removed.* Dopey stuff, but also a fun watch. Those Latin-rhythmed numbers are darn catchy. (One dance duo with castanets a bit better than that.) And Ulmer, who always shined playing around with music, maintains a beat in the vignettes with only a few inadequate actors stinking up the joint. Though what Margaret Lindsey, hardly used to Poverty Row ways after years at Warners, Columbia & Universal, thought of the experience would be nice to know. Some of Ulmer’s group staging when the club is full really defies the possibilities of his budget. The film just the thing if you were a grindhouse operator looking for a short-ish feature to run as a ‘chaser’ on a triple-bill.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *The ‘once removed’ cousin between GRAND HOTEL and this would be Warners’ WONDER BAR/’33, an earlier GRAND HOTEL in a Nightclub pic with Kay Francis, Ricardo Cortez, Al Jolson in his best perf, and a humdinger murder to solve. It would be better known if it didn’t feature the most stupendously offensive, jaw-dropping BlackFace ‘numbo’ ever filmed. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/01/wonder-bar-1933.html
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