Cast
Carl Brisson
Victor McLaglen
Jack Oakie
Kitty Carlisle
Gertrude Michael
Gail Patrick
Director: Mitchell Leisen
Synopsis
This vintage musical mystery takes place backstage at Earl Carroll's famed Broadway revue. Everyone is a suspect and the hard-nosed cop played by McLaglen must break the case before the killer... This vintage musical mystery takes place backstage at Earl Carroll's famed Broadway revue. Everyone is a suspect and the hard-nosed cop played by McLaglen must break the case before the killer exits stage right! Features the Duke Ellington Orchestra with songs including "Sweet Marijuana" and "Cocktails for Two."
Review
By Alan Vanneman
"Through these portals pass the most beautiful girls in the world."
That was the legend above the entrance of Earl Carroll’s Vanities, a Broadway institution for decades. Like Flo Ziegfeld before him and Hugh Hefner to follow, Earl Carroll was a gent with an eye for the female form. Things didn’t always go his way – he served a stretch in the slammer in the twenties for throwing a party that included, among other things, a 17-year-old girl taking a bath in a tub of wine — but Carroll always bounced back. Though forgotten today, his Vanities were potent enough to inspire four movies: Murder at the Vanities (1934), A Night at Earl Carroll’s (1940), Earl Carroll’s Vanities (1945), and Earl Carroll Sketchbook (1946). Only the first, which is almost undoubtedly the best, is available on video.
Murder at the Vanities is an intriguing cross between two genres, the murder mystery and backstage musical.
emarkably enough, it enjoys the strengths of both and the weaknesses of neither. The basic conceit of the film is that the murder (two of them, actually) must be both committed and solved during the course of the premiere performance of the Vanities. The result is one of the fastest-paced musicals, and one of the fastest-paced mysteries, you’ll ever see.
The focal point of Murder at the Vanities is stage manager Jack Oakie, who’s determined to see the show through despite falling sand bags, stage lights, and blood, along with an occasional corpse or two. He spends most of his time yelling at his cast and stiff-arming flatfoot Victor McLaglen, who naturally wants to shut the place down.
Oakie’s leading lady is Kitty Carlisle, who became Kitty Carlisle Hart in 1946 when she married Broadway playwright Moss Hart. Carlisle was born in New Orleans and raised in Paris, but by the time she hit the big screen she was pure Upper East Side. Carlisle kicks things off musically with "Where Do They Come From and Where Do They Go?", a number introducing us to the Vanities girls. (Strangely, we never really do find out where they come from or where they go.)
Carlisle and Brisson have a funny desert island number together, "Live and Love Tonight," which features chorus girls covered with ostrich feathers pretending to be waves. They also sing "Cocktails for Two," a salute to the demise of Prohibition.
Gertrude Michael gets two big numbers of her own in the show, "Sweet Marihuana" and "Ebony Rhapsody." The first features her singing before a backdrop of giant cacti, whose blooms contain naked women.
In the ensuing production number we get a number of good shots of Ellington and the band, mostly hamming it up rather than actually playing. Liszt then returns, with a machine gun, and proceeds to massacre the entire cast. This grotesque finale is necessary to the plot, because while everyone on stage is pretending to die, Ross/Michael is actually murdered. It looks as if Eric is headed for the chair, but at the last minute, a deliciously wide-eyed, hysterical confession by Ross’s maid, still sore about the tit-kicking, saves the day, at least for Eric and Kitty.