Based on the homonymous 1937 movie from a story by William A. Wellman and Robert Carson; that movie in turn shared several plot points with What Price Hollywood? (1932), based on a story by Adela Rogers St. Johns and Louis Stevens.
A declining rock star meets a struggling singer and starts a relationship with her. He promotes her work and she rises to stardom, whereas he sees his career fade.
A bad film in almost every aspect one can think of. In fact, I consider it quite a feat for a person or persons to have come up with so meticulously incompetent a job of work, and I think that gives it some kind of parodic value. There is one sequence, however, that I feel does not belong in it in any way: when the leading actress sings the beautiful Evergreen, composed by herself and a lyricist. It totally differs in style from the rest of the film. The recurrent attraction exerted by this story throughout the decades (4 films, 5 counting its 1932 cousin) is noteworthy. There must be some fundamental relevance about it. Note that in none of those 5 productions the gender of the two main characters has been reversed. Why do you thing that is? Maybe its appeal has something to do with a larger phenomenon affecting the sexes and their roles from the 20th century onwards?
Rating: 19
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