Nuits de New York

Interesting film based on a Broadway play (TIN PAN ALLEY) that starred Claudette Colbert.

The film is famous as one of Norma Talmadge's flop talkie attempts but it's not bad at all and is a better film than her 1930 attempt (and final film) as Madame DuBarry.

Talmadge plays a show girl married to a song writer (Gilbert Roland) but everyone is involved in the Broadway night life and endless parties. Plus Talmadge is being pursued by a gangster. Talmadge leaves her husband after he spends the night with a floozie. She ends up as the gangster's moll but soon gets tired of the life.

She runs into Roland (on the skids) later and tries to rekindle her relationship but as they attempt to leave wicked NYC for the country they get involved in a botched gangland murder.

This film proves that Talmadge had a perfectly good voice (she even sings a little), not overly trained and unnatural as she was as DuBarry. She's also pretty good in a the part and it's fascinating to finally see this great star in a "modern" role. Roland isn't bad as the husband and has surprisingly little accent.

Lilyan Tashman is Norma's pal, Roscoe Karns in the music partner, John Wray is the gangster, Mary Doran is the floozie, Jean Harlow has a bit part as a party guest, and Al Jolson makes a cameo and sings a song but it's all cut from the short version of this film that I have.

Another curiosity from the transition era. Why would this film have flopped?

This is one movie from 1929 that does not deserve the bad reputation it has. Norma Talmadge's voice is fine. Her performance in this remind me of Clara Bow, and director Lewis Milestone throws a costume party for the demi-mondaine that strikes me as something that human beings out for a good time with the rough crowd might go to for: free food and booze -- one at which the neighbors call the cops at 2AM instead of waiting for lightning to set the dirigible on fire a la DeMille.

The story is a little flat and predictable for 1929: showgirl Talmadge throws out songwriter-husband Gilbert Roland after he turns up drunk one time too many and takes up with visiting Chicago hood John Wray, who's crazy for her, but she can't help loving the big sap of a hubby.

There's lots of good stuff, from proto-noir lighting and some nice moving shots by cameraman Ray June, some fine editing by Hal Kern and good acting all around. So why the lack of interest? I think Miss Talmadge was in her mid-thirties, thought that film-making was getting too complicated, she wasn't getting any younger, and she didn't need the money. She and her sister Constance owned a big chunk of San Diego, anyway.

I wanted to watch "The Lights of New York", searched it up on YouTube, clicked on the first thing that came up (which was this movie), realised thirty minutes in and then decided to finish it anyway.

It was okay? Well, a little less than okay. I was into it for a while but then when I realised that it wasn't what I had wanted to watch I kind of lost interest for a bit. The story was pretty standard but none of the dialogue really popped out and the acting was pretty good for the most part.

I still haven't seen "The Lights of New York".

New York Nights (1929) is no classic or even worth a repeat watching for the average movie-goer, but it does not deserve the toxic reputation it has amassed since its release.

I'm not a terribly big Norma Talmadge fan; she's a competent actress with a deep, powerful voice. For some reasons, rumors of her possessing a shrill Brooklyn accent have lingered for years, no doubt due to the claim that she was the basis for the unpleasant voice of Lina Lamont, the villainess of Singin' in the Rain, a movie which is not a terribly accurate depiction of the silent to sound transition to begin with, though many seem to believe so. Nonetheless, Talmadge is solid as the heartbroken chorus girl. The rest of the cast is fine. William Cameron Menzies's art direction is great and the cinematography is pretty good too. The plot is hokum, but it's entertaining while you're watching the picture.

I'd wager Talmadge's fall from grace was not caused by an inability to exist in sound, but by the cultural shift brought on by the Great Depression. Hard-nosed dames and working girls struggling to survive were more in vogue than the types Norma tended to essay during her 1910s/1920s heyday. Up and comers like Joan Crawford, possessing different images and fresh faces, held more appeal for audiences.

As the Buddhists say, times are always changing. Talmadge's day had passed on by. At least she retired a wealthy woman; as her sister Constance is said to have told her, the critics can't mess with those trust funds, honey!

It is difficult for me to mark this picture as the copy I have is of very poor quality in visual and sound. I have seen Norma Talmadge in "DuBarry" and on the evidence of these two films, it certainly was not her voice that ended her career. I think it was simply a matter of her increasing age and weight. Apparently she was 34/35, but at times looks more like 50 and there is clearly a thickening of the neckline and Queen Mothering of the upper arms. A previous reviewer has mentioned the arrival of a new set of younger faces at this time (Joan Blondell and Jean Harlow, for instance),but ironically, only a couple of years after Talmadge's retirement, the big new star was a forty year old, overweight woman with just the type of accent which was supposed to have ended Norma's career, namely, Mae West. The young Gilbert Roland has very much the appearance of his namesake, John Gilbert and the same Latin charm as his friend and fellow Mexican, Ramon Novarro. As is to be expected, the film is tied down by the static microphone, but not as obviously as, say, "Lights of New York". Sadly, my copy is shorn of several minutes; there is one complete song and some musical snippets in the party scene but no sign of Al Jolson in a cameo role.From what I see, however, the film had potential which, somehow, just didn't come to fruition. Returning to the matter of "Lights of New York", not only do these films share a similar title, but even the endings are not a million miles from each other!