Applause

Ah, camera movement!

The way it all plays out feels a bit rote and unoriginal, but the performances and music hold up better than most sound transition films which makes it a pretty enjoyable watch.

The story is completely flat, emotionless and forgettable, but I doubt that really matters to you, because I'm assuming if you're on Criticker looking at a film from 1929, than you're someone interested in film history, in which case, Mammoulian's impressive camera movement is definitely worth a watch. Just don't expect yourself immersed in the narrative.

This movie shows its age, but Mamoulian's use of sound is still creative, the camera movement is still impressive, and Helen Morgan, the greatest of all down-and-out divas, is full of humanity and heartbreak.

A sometimes-musical melodrama with a fair degree of contempt for the music and spectacle on offer provides an interesting setup for what really is an impressively done essay at linking some creative sound design and musical backing to the more established tools of camera technique and montage editing. The earlier sequences are especially well realized.

Really enjoyed the scene where April goes and sees her mother for the first time as a burlesque dancer, amazing scene (especially the different faces of the dirty men and exhausted women)! The rest of the movie was waaaaaay too melodramatic for me ... but luckily the 'bad' ending saved the movie from becoming a total bore. Mamoulian experimented a lot with sound, but sometimes kept true to the classic silent movies. The story should have been better though...

Very dated but still reasonably entertaining and historically important for its camerawork and sound design.

Mamoulian is out of fashion now, but he was a master at a crucial moment. As he name itself suggests, there could be movement in sound. Sound was a new fluidity that might bridge cuts or opticals, a constant that allowed the pace of film, to quicken to the speed of thought. The appaling rigidity of silent film and the moral and literary freeze that went with it were over. Applause is very antiquated and weepy, even if Helen Morgan is something to see.

Not that great of a plot and overly melodramatic acting, but some fantastic camera work and sound design.

An impressive early musical that explores the need to be loved with some very beautiul, fluid tracking shots, and a wicked downer of an ending.