Torch Singer (1933)

Pre-code 1930s:
Anyone Seen My Gal Named Sal?
Torch Singer (1933)
Studio: Paramount Pictures • 72 min B&W • AR 1.33:1 • US: 8 Sep 1933
Re-release: Universal Backlot Series (Apr 2009)
Series: Universal’s Pre-code Hollywood Collection (3-DVD)
Starring: Claudette Colbert, Ricardo Cortez, David Manners, Lyda Roberti, Mildred Washington
Dir: Alexander Hall & George Somnes

Pregant and alone in the world, Sally Trent (Claudette Colbert) spends a few months in a Catholic woman’s home having her baby. Here she bonds with a chum, Dora Nichols (Lyda Roberti), who’s a hard headed blonde with ambitions — to marry. They share a flat for a while as Sally tries to get back on her feet but Dora gets her man and moves out. Destitute, she implores the child’s father’s aunt to help but is denied — leaving her no choice but to give up her daughter for adoption with the stipulation that she must never see her daughter again.

Heart-broken, Sally returns to her singing career and puts her new found sorrow to work, infusing her art with depth — just the thing to transform her into a very successful nightclub torch singer, now known as Mimi Benton. Part of her success is due to the kindly companionship of entreprenuer, night club and radio station owner Tony Cummings (Ricardo Cortez). As happens so often in real life, a radio actress, “Aunt Jenny”, takes ill just as Sally/Mimi happens to be in the studio; she takes over, telling children’s stories and singing lullabies to the under 10 set. But no one must know she sings in lounges at night! Using the radio, she asks children with the name of Sally to write in with their adddress and birthday and she sends each one a doll. As happens so often in real life, instead of finding her lost daughter Sally, she hooks the lost boyfriend, wealthy Mike Gardner (David Manners) who was suddenly away in China and had no idea what happened to Sally and now wants to reunite. Will Sally’s abandoned daughter be found? Will Sally/Mimi find renewed love with Mike? Or will Tony, the station owner, win the prize?

The bit part of Sally’s maid, played by Mildred Washington, almost steals the show. Cortez is wonderfully professional, as always, and a much under-rated leading man of the period; blond and good looking David Manners is, by comparison, a prop. But this is by every measure Colbert’s vehicle. She is fascinatingly marvelous, going from pitiable victim to take-charge-of-her-life winner shaping her own destiny — and eventually reaping the rewards. She makes money, fame and prestige for herself; can she also find her daughter and true love?

Still in her 20s, Colbert was already a huge star — this was her 20th film in a five year career. And what a range: Honor Among Lovers (w. Frederic March, Ginger Rogers and dir Dorothy Arzner), The Sign of the Cross (Cecil B DeMille’s most celebrated screen spectacle of debauchery which led to the production code being implemented fully), and The Wiser Sex (w Melvyn Douglas and the debut of Franchot Tone, before he married Joan Crawford). One year later she’d star in Cleopatra (DeMille again), It Happened One Night (w. Clark Gable, dir Frank Capra) and the celebrated tear-jerker Imitation of Life. She’s wonderful here, carrying the film and pulling off what is in all other respects a pretty tall tale.

The print and sound are excellent. The big tune (this is The Torch Singer after all) is “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Love” which proves how well-rounded a talent Colbert really was.