Mandalay

Mandalay (1934)

There are a few great reasons to see this movie. For one, it's an early Michael Curtiz film (he's the guy who did "Casablanca" and "Mildred Pierce"). Another, it stars the great Kay Francis, who is what we expect from her-charming, intense, subtle, significant. And finally, this is a pre-Code film (barely) with that little edge that makes it fresh. The plot is a bit jarring at first--the leading character played by Francis is Tanya (or Spot White, later) and she is trapped into being a nightclub hostess (and prostitute?). Francis is great at being both the victim and the ultimate in femme fatale (or a woman of power, at least). She's great. The cast around her is strong, too, and the scenes keep changing and evolving, so you have to stay awake to keep up. There is some really fabulous cinematography here, by the great but unheralded Tony Gaudio. One scene uses a mirror in the center of the frame to show one scene while the background shows another, giving us a fast impression of her nightclub. In smaller ways, the camera moves and approaches the key moments with elegance. Other scenes have just a great sense of light and drama (the short part with the turning paddlewheel of the boat at night is great). Everything begins in Rangoon. The scene shifts eventually to Mandalay, which is an inland city in Burma (Myanmar now). It requires a nice boat ride through the jungle, with all sorts of characters along. There are issues of servitude, alcoholism, virtue (as seen by Westerners visiting Asia), and maybe (in a strained way) love. It's a lot of drama and I like it, held in place finally by Francis. And check out the last five seconds. This is truly a pre-code film, and if justice is served in the end, it isn't what the Hays Code would ever have allowed. Sweet

A lot appealed to me when 'Mandalay' was recommended here to me, in the more like this section. That it was directed by a great director in Michael Curtiz got my interest and seeing the names in the cast interested me further. Do like Kay Francis a lot, though she was often better than her material, Ricardo Cortez always makes for a good villain and Lyle Talbot is good when the role is interesting. The story did sound interesting but was worried about how the melodrama would fare.

'Mandalay' is by no means one of Curtiz's best films, consider it more a little above average minor work. All have done better, but nobody actually is disgraced. It is a great looking film and the performances are good. What is less successful is the story, which starts off good and ends surprisingly but too much of the second half is silly melodramatic soap that lacks surprises and is not as interesting. So 'Mandalay' is a slight mixed bag, with a little more good than bad.

Visually, 'Mandalay' looks wonderful. There is a lot of beautiful photography throughout, there is nothing cheap about the locations and Francis' wardrobe has the wow factor. The music fits the atmosphere well, and the song is a lovely one (the number of times it was used was not necessary though). The script in the first half has snap, bite and fun with a daring edge, while the story was absorbing in the first half. The ending is as has been said very surprising and not what one expects.

Curtiz directs with good skill visually and dramatically, though he didn't seem as engaged once the second half started before the spark came back towards the end. Francis is alluring and sensual, her role is perfect for playing to her strengths and she has no trouble commanding the screen. Talbot is good as a character not near as interesting, he is hardly bland. Cortez is typecast, but it was a character he played very well indeed, which he acts with a sinister touch, and it was clear the studio knew that. Warner Oland also does well and doesn't overdo his part, grate or feels out of place.

On the other hand, the second half isn't as strong. It loses momentum, from a little too much padding, and the dialogue loses its snap, becomes stilted and gets at its worst pretty stupid. The story also gets very soap-operatic and in pure over-heated melodrama fashion and creaks badly, it was like watching another film.

The supporting cast has some interesting names, but only Oland and Ruth Donnelly rise above their material. Everybody else struggles to register as characters that are never really fleshed out and feel like plot devices instead. As said, as lovely as the song is it is too repetitively used.

Concluding, starts well and ends surprisingly but loses its way generally in the second half. Worth seeing for the production values and the three leads. 6/10

Mandalay is the kind of exotic pre-code potboiler that is fun to watch even though none of it can be taken seriously. Perhaps that's the reason it is so entertaining, in a predictable sort of way.

Much of it is set in Rangoon, with lovely Kay Francis head-over-heals in love with heel Ricardo Cortez. Since it is Cortez, and he specialized in playing smooth cads, it isn't long before Francis is heart broken and soon working as a courtesan in a dive run by Warner Oland, always impressively menacing as a villain.

Francis' character becomes something of a local legend called Spot White, and soon she makes enough cash from men to be on her way out of the dive and in a boat on her way to Mandalay. There she meets nice but alcoholic doctor Lyle Talbot, not long before that rat Cortez shows up again. We'll leave it there for the story line.

Michael Curtiz directs it all at a fast pace, Francis gets to fashion some lovely gowns and wide brimmed hats (which her female fans demanded of her) and Cortez, as always, is a convincing louse. The film runs not much past an hour, which helps, and has a true pre-code ending which will not be revealed here. If the film had come out just a year later the ending would have been different, that's for sure.

A decent time waster, with some effectively atmospheric Oriental sets, and rather nicely photographed. Francis fans will have a good time, I feel. For others, a pre-coder that turns a bit soapy in the final half but worth sticking out, if only for that ending.

"Mandalay" starts off as if it's going to be a real pre-code classic along the lines of "Safe in Hell" or "Red Dust". Kay Francis is abandoned by her gunrunning lover in Rangoon, and is doomed to become a courtesan (with the great moniker "Spot White") in Warner Oland's high class cabaret/brothel. Unfortunately, once our heroine escapes these confines and hits the river for Mandalay, the film becomes a turgid melodrama.

Michael Curtiz's baroque direction keeps matters visually interesting, but he can't breathe any life into the dismal characters. Ms Francis's lisp is more prominent than usual and Lyle Talbot shows why he deserved a future in Ed Wood extravaganzas. Plus, they both should have impaled the studio hairdresser. Although Oland plays an Oriental as usual, he's not saddled with the Charlie Chan accent this time, and shows plenty of mettle. Ricardo Cortez comes off the best with much spontaneity as an opportunistic rogue.

Pre-code buffs will definitely want to hang around for the conclusion, wherein the perpetrator of an insidious criminal deed blatantly walks off into the sunset scot-free! The short running time and jumps in the narrative make one wonder how much of the back-story was left on the cutting-room floor.

If you feel a bit dozy watching Mandalay, you're probably reproducing the state in which the screenwriters produced this lackluster script. Samples: "I was a coward. I ran away. But I couldn't run away from myself." "None of that matters to me. (pause) As long as I have you."

The dialogue, however, hasn't been through the mill as often as Kay Francis. Once more, she suffers! She is betrayed! She lives a life of shame! But, boy, does she clean up, with an arm that looks like a jewelry display for diamond bracelets and a wardrobe heavy on the sequins, satin, and chiffon--with a little embroidered organdie number for when she is Redeemed. I don't know how she did it, but Kay always had more sophisticated evening gowns than anyone, even Joan Crawford. There is also a number that out-Dietrich's Dietrich, when she sweeps into the police commissioner's office in a skin- tight gown, a hat the size of a cartwheel, and a fan half as big as she is!

This and some incidental players and pleasures (Ruth Donnelly, Hermann Bing, Rafaele Ottianao) make Mandalay agreeable enough. But what dumb dialogue--when someone knocks on Kay's door and calls her with a name by which she is known only to one person, she not only asks who it is but is shocked to see him when she opens the door! Never mind, just go with the flow, like Kay.