Torch Singer

An unwed TORCH SINGER uses her children's radio show to search for her illegitimate daughter.

Claudette Colbert has a fine time in this Pre-Code melodrama playing a distraught female who covers up for the necessary separation from her child by embracing a life of empty decadence. While highly fanciful--the heroine is both sultry nightclub chanteuse and kindly kiddy radio hostess--the plot is still most enjoyable, with Colbert wringing every bit of pathos from her character's plight.

Ricardo Cortez plays the refreshingly decent producer who assists Colbert to become a celebrity. David Manners ably plays her long-lost lover. Peppery Lydia Roberti is most enjoyable as a high-spirited young mother; her character is sorely missed when she disappears early in the film. Old Charley Grapewin adds some spark as the flirtatious breakfast cereal tycoon who sponsors Miss Colbert's radio show.

A quartet of character actresses lend able support in small roles: Florence Roberts as a sympathetic nun; Virginia Hammond as Grapewin's suspicious wife; Mildred Washington as Miss Colbert's energetic maid; and aristocratic Ethel Griffies as Manners' inflexible aunt. Baby LeRoy, nemesis of W.C. Fields, appears in only one scene as Miss Roberti's infant son.

Movie mavens will recognize unbilled Scots actress Margaret Mann as a nanny.

Torch Singer (1933)

A hobbled movie if you expect something naturalistic and moving, but Claudette Colbert is so convincing and terrific she almost compensates. A Depression-era tale of an affair that produced a baby, and then the mother having to struggle alone trying and failing to raise it. It takes off from there, as Colbert as the mother makes good with her life in other ways. The baby of course is still in the back of her mind, and causes a couple of dramatic twists later on.

The plot is a huge contrivance, and so you have to jump in and see it as a kind of morality tale, packaged a little too neatly and with some comic and tragic episodes almost too forcefully inserted. It's all interesting and fun, though, and Colbert really is a versatile and heartfelt actress here.

The one thing she may not do so well for modern audiences is sing so well, and as the title suggests, this is a key part of the middle of the movie. The orchestras are great, and the parade of side characters rather convincing as we go along, however. The sudden reappearance of the father, and the rather neat coincidences that follow, were way too much for me to swallow, however, especially the patched-on ten second last scene, which could have at least had some honest drama to it. You'll see.

It's probably the ending most people wanted to see, however, and a justification of what had happened earlier (all of which is a kind of taboo just a year later when the Hays Code would have made an out-of-wedlock birth a more serious offense). I think it's handled here in a believable way, however, at first, so thank goodness it was finished before the artifice of the later 1930s took over these kinds of themes.

The movie also has some nice (if neatly packaged) insights to the crude beginnings of commercial radio, which was always live, and which amounted to some people standing in front of a microphone. This was much like television was in its first years after WWII, with live broadcasts the necessity. And Colbert sings her own songs in this movie, for better or for worse. A total period effort, in tone and in content.

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.

Claudette Colbert sizzles in this "women's film" about a girl gone bad who's forced to give her illegitimate baby up for adoption and then sets out to find her years later after she's become a famous nightclub singer.

This is melodrama good and proper, folks, so be prepared to suspend your disbelief if you're going to have a chance at enjoying it. But if you give in, you might just find what I found in this film, a sexy, sometimes funny, sometimes truly affecting story about a mother's love with an absolutely sensational actress making sure you buy it hook, line and sinker. Colbert is marvelous, and I couldn't take my eyes off of her whenever she's on the screen, which fortunately is most of the time.

Grade: B+

It's fun to see Colbert warbling the blues (several times) and kiddies lullabies in this well made and directed soap. Unwed and unable to manage she gives up her baby and becomes a disreputable torch singer and the hottest attraction around. Colbert goes from forlorn unwed mother to Mae-Westian blues singer in a captivating role. "Realization" puts her "back on track" to find her daughter. All this in 72 minutes! Good support from Lyda Roberti, Ricardo Cortez and David Manners. It's a shame this isn't available on video.