CW: sexual abuse/predation and suicide.
Perhaps ironically, Rouben Mamoulian did his best work behind the camera in the early days of sound, when he was far ahead of the pack in making fluid, innovative, technically ambitious (and accomplished) films which put their static contemporaries to shame. After making the first feature in full Technicolor (Becky Sharp), his career began to lose a bit of steam, and after 1942, he only completed two films, though he was fired from three others (including Cleopatra; I can only imagine what that would’ve been like). Maybe, having reached the limits of innovation (at least as much as the studio system would allow) he simply didn’t know quite what to do.
Applause isn’t Mamoulian’s best film – at the very least, it’s not as good as his brilliant Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – but it’s an impressive one, the more so when you learn that it was his first film; it’s as if he didn’t know what he couldn’t do and just shot for the Moon. The opening shots alone tell you you’re in for something above and beyond your average early talkie: we see a handbill for vaudeville singer Kitty Darling (Helen Morgan) blowing around a deserted street, then we hear, faintly, a band playing “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight,” then we see people rushing along as the noise grows louder, and finally we see Kitty riding in a promotional parade, the music now heard at full volume.
Right away, Mamoulian makes excellent use of sound, editing, and image, and as the action shifts to the burlesque theater where Kitty is performing, he keeps it up, using tracking shots (in particular to examine the chorus line, made up of real veteran chorus girls), overhead shots, and other clever angles to bring the story to life. Then Kitty has a baby in her dressing room (she sure didn’t look pregnant, but that’s the era for you), and we get another overhead shot as her castmates file around her and her newborn daughter.
As we move ahead, Kitty is persuaded to send her daughter April, now 5, to a convent school, and we get our first taste of the film’s most evergreen theme, the predatory nature of show business – especially as practiced by men against women. Not because Joe King (Jack Cameron, with a great deep voice like John Carradine) is such a man – in fact, he’s the one who recommends sending April away, so she won’t grow up in the world of burlesque. But despite making a friendly proposal, when we move ahead several more years, Kitty is now with Hitch Nelson (Fuller Melish Jr.), and he’s a real piece of work.
Here Mamoulian shows yet more invention, having Kitty sitting on the floor, singing “What Wouldn’t I Do for That Man,” while a slow diagonal wipe reveals Hitch in a clinch with another woman, and even after Kitty’s image is gone, we still hear her singing. And when Hitch learns about April (now 17) and, after chiding Kitty for “holding out” on him, coerces her into withdrawing Kitty from school and bringing her to live with them. Poor Kitty doesn’t know or doesn’t care that Hitch is shamelessly taking her for all she’s worth, and when April (played by Joan Peers) arrives, Hitch develops an unsavory interest in her – which Kitty is likewise unaware of.
But before April leaves the convent, we get yet another virtuoso scene, as the camera follows her through the building, with the sound of “Ave Maria” being sung and played on an organ growing realistically in volume as she approaches the source of the sound, and the camera moving gracefully along behind her. And when she arrives in New York, we get a mixture of vivid location shooting and sound which evokes the cacophony of the city, allowing us to really feel how disoriented poor April is.
And when she goes to see her mother for the first time in years, seeing her perform on the stage, we get a nightmarish sequence, full of dramatic angles and startling editing, which juxtaposes the scantily clad burlesquers with the leering men in the audience – images which are further heightened for a nightmare April will have later on. She may come off as something of a pious stick-in-the-mud, but Mamoulian uses all the tricks at his disposal to put us in her shoes.
April is drawn unhappily into the burlesque life at Hitch’s insistence, and must constantly struggle against his bullying and lechery – and there are scenes here which could sit right alongside some of the most emotionally draining moments in Pleasure – but then she meets Tony (Henry Wadsworth), a cheery young sailor from Wisconsin who initially seems to be a bit pushy himself (he also casually uses a racial slur; in this world, even the nice guys aren’t perfect), but soon proves to be genuinely decent, and within days, they’re engaged.
While this aspect of the story isn’t at all innovative – it’s pretty corny, in fact – it has a genuine sweetness and spiritedness, and there are scenes, like their trip at dawn to the Brooklyn Bridge or their date at the top of a skyscraper, which allow for more effective location shooting, taking us far out of the confines of the studio. And again, we get a hint that Tony isn’t a plaster saint; he jokingly threatens to jump off the skyscraper if April rejects his proposal, which is uncomfortably similar to Hitch’s constant threats to leave Kitty (which always end with him getting his way).
Kitty approves of the marriage, but Hitch does not, and after April overhears a conversation in which Hitch denigrates Kitty and it’s revealed that her career is all but dead, April decides to dump Tony, telling him that she relishes the applause she receives and that getting married so quickly is foolish (which…unironically sound thinking). After they part in the subway (more location shooting, though at this point we’re just hoping she’ll drop the act and choose love), she heads to the theater to take her place on the stage.
But Kitty, devastated by April’s intentions, takes an overdose of sleeping pills and waits for death. But it doesn’t come right away, and she too rushes to theater, where she’s assumed to be drunk by the uncaring manager and Hitch. April defends her and plans to go on in her place (Kitty was scheduled for a solo number), doing so to considerable acclaim – but parading in a revealing costume before a lecherous crowd is just not what she wants from life.
Of course, as she runs offstage in tears, she sees Tony, who just knew she didn’t mean what she said. They plan to marry, move to Wisconsin, and take Kitty with her – but we already know that Kitty has died (thanks to a blurring of the image), in tears at the thought of her daughter giving up her own happiness, and the final image is a poster of Kitty at the height of her fame, symbolically watching over the young lovers.
So yes, it’s a melodrama, at times a somewhat creaky one, but bolstered by Mamoulian’s direction, the cinematography and sound, the timeless aspects of the script (based on a novel by Beth Brown), and even some of the performances. Morgan, who looks and acts a bit like a breathy, down-at-heels Lina Lamont here, is touching as the tragically exploited Kitty, whose real talents are ignored by the men around her in favor of making the quick buck and keeping most of it for themselves. She doesn’t actually do that much singing, but she’s wholly convincing both as the veteran performer and the long-suffering woman. (Mae West was considered for the role; I can’t see her doing the pathetic or tragic aspects of the role justice.)
She’s also not really the lead; Peers has, I’m pretty sure, more screentime and April’s fate drives the film to a larger degree. She’s not quite as good as Morgan, especially when she has to show how horrified April is by the wicked city and the degenerate world of burlesque, but overall she does a good job at showing a relevantly sheltered girl who gradually comes into her own as a human being and chooses the path she really wants in the end. Mellish, meanwhile, is all too convincing as the cruel, manipulative Hitch. (Wadsworth is passable, but Tony is the least interesting major character.)
Ultimately, despite showing its age in some respects, Applause holds up shockingly well, both for its technical skill and its dramatic heft; by the end, I was quite fully caught up in wanting April to find her happiness and escape her abuser. That her mother won’t be able to join in that happiness makes the ending incredibly bittersweet, even 93 years after the fact. The Academy snubbed Applause completely, instead giving six nominations to a different Paramount musical, the light-hearted The Love Parade – an enjoyable, lightweight film, but with nothing like the innovation or emotional depth of this film. At least the NBR put in on their list.
And, given that this film deals with the tragically relevant issue of sexual predation, you might consider donating to the National Network of Abortion Funds, to help ensure bodily autonomy for those alive today.
Score: 80
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