A Major Disappointment

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

While there were many actresses who shone in pre-Code films and were inhibited by the shift to stricter censorship (Barbara Stanwyck and Jean Harlow, among others), Claudette Colbert may not have been one of them, if this film is any indication.Colbert was a warm presence, a sly comedienne, a likable and brittle by turns actress who always filled out every scene. What she was not - to me anyway - was brazen or bawdy or hysterical. And too much of this film is an attempt to give her that type of material. I also don't think some of the songs suited Colbert's voice. I can't help wondering if other actresses turned the part down. The best parts of the film are Lyda Roberti as the woman she lives with during the brief period where they are raising their out of wedlock children (Roberti sadly disappears early on), a scene of Colbert singing a lullaby to a baby, and a startling scene, one that does show the strengths of the pre-Code era, where a little girl who is the same age and has the same name as the daughter Colbert gave away contacts her radio show. Colbert goes to the girl's neighborhood, she walks out...and it's a little black girl. Rather than being treated as a joke, or an excuse for eye-popping stereotypes, Colbert has a sweet, short conversation with her and gives her some candy. It's a nice moment.

With this sudsy woman's picture complete with songs, Claudette Colbert proved there was no genre she couldn't do well - she even handles the songs okay.Sally Trent (Claudette Colbert) meets Dora (Lyda Roberti) at a maternity hospital and they become friends. Dora has a little boy and Sally, a little girl, but although at first she tries to make a go of it, Sally is , at last, forced to put her baby up for adoption. Trying to rebuild her life and career - after many tryouts she is told she must learn to suffer!!!! She then refines her singing to become a "torch singer" (a woman who sings of love gone wrong). She picks up a manager, Tony (fascinating Ricardo Cortez) and soon becomes "Mimi" - the most notorious torch singer in town!!!! When she fills in for a woman with "mike fright" she picks up a new career and is a sensation as "Aunt Jenny" on a daily children's radio show. Cards and letters pour in, including one from a little girl called Sally - it brings back memories of her own little girl. She then uses the radio show in her quest to try to find the child she gave up for adoption four years before. She finds her, as well as Mike (boring David Manners), the father of her child. Yes, the ending is unsatisfactory but it would have pleased audiences at the time.Baby LeRoy's name was featured quite prominently in the credits but he only had one scene. He was riding on the crest of a wave then, being Paramount's great find of the year but unfortunately he stopped being quite so popular when he grew up - which was within a year or two. Cora Sue Collins, who played Sally's little girl (in a quite self conscious way, I thought), because she wasn't under contract to any studio spent most of her career way down the cast list playing "little girls". Her most prestigious role was in "Queen Christina" (1933) where she played Garbo as a child and her most memorable came at the end of the thirties as Amy Lawrence, Tom Sawyer's little girlfriend before Becky Thatcher moved into town. I would definitely have liked to see more of Lyda Roberti. I was hoping she would reappear but she never did. Her delightful way with the English language gave the movie a much needed brightness.The song "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Love" became a popular song hit of the day, with recordings being made by Bing Crosby and Annette Hanshaw.

"Torch Singer" is a modest pre-Code gem that showcases Claudette Colbert's fine performance as a Good Woman who, after having a baby out of wedlock, becomes a pretty good Bad Woman.Pre-Code films often offer powerful glimpses into women's lives, even in melodramas, and "Torch Singer" is no exception. I especially like the frank manner in which the pregnancy is presented, and also the relationship that develops between Sally and Dora, two young mothers in the same situation who befriend each other.****SPOILER****We are introduced to Sally Trent (Colbert) as she enters a charity hospital to have her baby after an affair with Michael Gardner (David Manners), a wealthy Bostonian who has left for China. In the hospital, Sally meets Dora (Lyda Roberti), another mother without a husband. The two women join together as a family of four until Dora is forced to leave after quitting her job because of sexual harassment from her boss. Alone, Sally struggles unsuccessfully to provide for herself and daughter, whose name is also Sally. In desperation, she visits the wealthy aunt of her child's father, pleading with her to take her daughter, even offering never to see the girl again. When the aunt refuses, Sally gives up her child for adoption at the charity hospital, relinquishing all rights, only asking that the Mother Superior keep Sally as the girl's name.After several rough years, Sally Trent emerges at Mimi Benton, a notorious but successful torch singer, hardened by life but financially well-off and in control of the many men who desire her. By accident she also becomes Aunt Jenny, the hostess of a children's radio program sponsored by Pure Foods. As Aunt Jenny, Mimi tells bedtime stories filtered through her personal experiences and sings torch-inspired lullabies while encouraging the children to keep healthy by drinking Pure Food's Ovaltine-like Oltina.During an inspired transition in character, which Colbert manages exquisitely, Mimi realizes that her daughter may be one of the many children who listen to Aunt Jenny on the radio, prompting her to encourage girls named Sally to write to Aunt Jenny. When she receives a letter from a Sally who may indeed be her daughter, Mimi rushes to meet her. The little girl turns out to be African American, not the Caucasian child of the Sally/Michael union. I braced myself, expecting a moment of condescension, but it didn't happen. Colbert brilliantly underplays, staying in character as Aunt Jenny, betraying none of Mimi's deeply felt disappointment at not finding Sally. Mimi gives the little girl a fancy box of chocolates, sits down next to her, and warmly begins telling her one of Aunt Jenny's stories as the scene ends. The unexpected integrity of this sequence surprised and gratified me, as did its subtlety, a quality sometimes lacking from more serious films exploring racial issues a couple of decades later.The pre-Code ethic provides another refreshing element. Sally/Mimi is never forced to apologize for the life she leads. If she suffers, it's part of the situation, not because she has to be punished."Torch Singer" is one of the few films in which Colbert had the opportunity to show off her not-too-bad contralto. She sings several songs including "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Love," suggesting that even voices got cleaned up after the enforcement of the Production Code.Like many of her contemporaries, Colbert could be sexy in pre-Code films in a way she rarely could in '30s films made under the constraints of the Code. In the scene in her dressing room where Mimi tells her wealthy Bostonian about having gone through hell ("It's a nice place, you must go there someday."), dressed in a shimmering Travis Banton gown and wearing dangling earrings, Colbert is a knockout.

The soap suds reach almost to the ceiling in "Torch Singer" but that's part of the fun. Claudette Colbert and the rest of the excellent cast have a grand old time as they work their way through the somewhat rusty plot. Colbert sings a couple of songs and wears some smashing gowns as she portrays a chorus girl with a heart of gold who's forced to give up her baby daughter and become a torch singer to earn a living in Depression-era New York. In no time at all she's the toast of the town, with a fancy apartment, a maid, and a boy friend who's a big radio executive. She covers up her need for her daughter by drinking, dancing and carrying on, and does it ever look like fun. But it all works out in the end, and with only minutes to spare.Look for Lyda Roberti, the Polish bombshell in the first part of the movie as Colbert's friend and roommate. Roberti died tragically young, with only a few films to her credit, notably "The Kid From Spain " and "Million Dollar Legs," in which she played Mata Machree, The Woman No Man Can Resist. "Torch Singer" is kind of tame for a pre-Code feature but it's fun and well worth watching.