Wonder Bar

A catalog of pre-Production Code amorality (a character gets away with murder, nearly everyone is having some kind of affair), raciness (including a blatant homosexual gag that had me guffawing) and alas, a Jolson blackface number. Story is sub-Grand Hotel intrigue, but the film really soars during Busby Berkeley's musical setpiece. It's like the gates of heaven opening up.

What a waste of potential. Al Jolson made some good contribution to this movie, his dramatic acting is his best quality, and seeing him play an eviler character was a nice change, but, ultimately, he ruined this. I though, wishfully, that they were going to ignore, or at least tone significantly down his "comedic skits", but, of course, no. When being presented with a mother fucking 10 minutes long blackface musical, all enjoyment was completely lost.

That Busby Berkeley dance number is a stroke of genius! The rest however is not. Well, some of Al Jolson's stand-up was fine and the blackface number is of wonderfully bad taste inserting just about every stereotypical portrayal into it, but the plots was fairly average and the non-Berkeley musical numbers was filmed as it if was a old TV broadcast and really didn't look very good. But it kept the pace up with intense acting shifting from one dilemma to the other. Oh, and... "Boys will be boys!"