Torch Singer (1933)

Torch Singer is a 1933 pre-code offering from Paramount starring Claudette Colbert.

Sally Trent (Colbert) is an out-of-work aspiring singer. She’s broke and pregnant and she has her baby in a charity hospital. She tries to make a go of raising her daughter on her own but it’s to no avail. With a baby to care for she can’t find any way to earn a living and she can’t pay the rent and her attempt to persuade the family of the baby’s father to take responsibility fails as well. She has no choice. She puts the baby, whom she has named Sally, up for adoption.

Then she tries to get work as a singer. It takes a while but eventually she starts to enjoy some success, using the professional name Mimi Benton. And that success steadily builds. While her success grows her notoriety grows even faster. Mimi Benton is known for her wild living and her immorality.

Then fate plays a strange trick. Mimi is at a radio station and a kids’ show is about to go on the air for the first time. The show will feature a 15-minute segment by Aunt Jennie. Aunt Jennie will tell the children a story and then sing them a song. But the woman who is to pay Aunt Jennie, a nice middle-aged lady, freezes completely at the last minute. It’s every radio station program director’s worst nightmare. Seized by a whim Mimi grabs the microphone. She throws the script away and improvises a story. Her story is much more exciting than the scripted story.

The broadcast is a huge success. Mimi is a natural. Children throughout the nation instantly love her. Of course it was just a crazy whim and it was just a one-off. The show’s sponsors and the show’s producer, Tony Cummings (Ricardo Cortez), realise however that somehow they must persuade Mimi to continue. They must get her to sign a contract. Mimi of course has an emotional thing about children, having given up her own child for adoption. Playing Aunt Jennie is strangely satisfying. She signs the contract.

The broadcasts continue to be immensely popular. The one worry is that someone might reveal the truth, that Aunt Jennie is really the infamous torch singer Mimi Benton, widely considered to be the most brazen hussy in the city. This is a secret that must be kept.

Inevitably Mimi starts to think about her own daughter. Maybe little Sally is one of her listeners. Mimi becomes obsessed with finding her little girl.

What Mimi doesn’t know is that while she is searching for little Sally someone else is searching too, and that someone is searching for the woman once known as Sally Trent.

The stage is set for lots of emotional dramas.

This is an odd movie. It has two natures - it veers between soggy sentimentality and breezy sexy fun. Of course the character played by Claudette Colbert has two natures as well, the loving mother desperate to find her child and the wild good time girl Mimi Benton. Colbert manages to switch effortlessly between these two sides of the same woman. In the early 1930s Claudette Colbert truly could do no wrong and it’s her performance that carries the movie.

It’s fun seeing Ricardo Cortez playing a nice guy, and doing a pretty good job of it. David Manners plays a key role and he is as dull as always. Charley Grapewin provides some amusement as the radio show’s sponsor who is totally captivated by Mimi.

One of the most enjoyable things about pre-code movies is the stunning gowns worn by the female stars. Women’s fashions at this time really were wonderfully slinky and Claudette Colbert looks fabulous, and very sexy, wearing such clothes.

The script is of course a bit contrived but that’s to expected - this is a tugging at the heartstrings melodrama and every drop of emotion has to be squeezed from the story.

I like the fact that the screenplay zips along at breakneck pace and maintains a laser-sharp focus. It wastes no time whatsoever on extraneous subplots or secondary characters.  

How pre-code is it? It doesn’t have as much overtly racy content as some pre-code movies but it certainly doesn’t judge Sally/Mimi for being a unmarried mother and it certainly doesn’t take the view that such a woman deserves punishment. There’s also no suggestion that being a notorious night-club singer would make a woman an unsuitable mother. So in fact it is very pre-code.

Torch Singer isn’t the sort of movie I would normally enjoy but Claudette Colbert makes any movie worth watching. Recommended.

This movie is one of the six that make up the Universal Backlot Pre-Code Collection DVD boxed set, a set that is a must-buy for pre-code fans. Torch Singer gets a very good transfer.

I’ve reviewed other movies from this DVD set including Hot Saturday (1932), the 1931 version of The Cheat, Merrily We Go to Hell (1932) and Murder at the Vanities (1934)

The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)

The Smiling Lieutenant, released by Paramount in 1931, is a fairly typical example of the Ernst Lubitsch musical. It’s a delightful frothy concoction, which is all it tries to be and all it needs to be.

Maurice Chevalier is Niki, a lieutenant in the 1st Austrian Guards Regiment. As you’d expect in a Lubitsch musical he’s a ladies’ man. In fact Niki’s ideas of the duties of an officer begin and end with the pursuit of the fair sex.

Niki’s latest love is Franzi (Claudette Colbert), a violinist with an all-girl orchestra. Franzi is something special for Niki, and he certainly doesn’t intend to ruin anything so special by proposing marriage.

Niki’s life takes an unexpected turn during a state visit by the King of Flausenthurm, a tiny neighbouring principality. As the king passes in his carriage, accompanied by his daughter the Princess Anna (Miriam Hopkins), Niki (whose regiment is providing the guard of honour) makes the mistake of smiling and winking at Franzi. It it a mistake since the princess thinks he was smiling and winking at her.



A scandal erupts and Niki is hauled before the King of Flausenthurm. Niki charms the king, and he charms the princess. Soon his little indiscretion is forgotten. Niki thinks he’s had a narrow escape but he soon discovers to his horror that he is now assumed to be engaged to the Princess Anna. That’s what happens when princesses think they’ve been winked at.

Niki isn’t the marrying kind anyway and he certainly doesn’t want to marry the rather frumpish Anna. And he has no intention of giving up Franzi. Anna soon realises that her new husband isn’t the least bit interested in her. Somehow she must find a way to attract his interest and she calls on an unexpected ally.



The world Lubitsch celebrates in his musicals had already ceased to exist when he made them. It is clear that Lubitsch regards this is as something of a tragedy. The Europe of the Belle Epoque that was swept away by the First World War was in some ways the highest point European civilisation ever reached. By 1931 it was already the stuff of legend, a vanished golden age. The magic of Hollywood, and the famous Lubitsch Touch, brought that world to life again on the screen. The results are visually dazzling.

Maurice Chevalier played the same role in all the Lubitsch musicals he appeared in. It may well have been the only role he could play but it suited these musicals perfectly. Claudette Colbert makes a charming leading lady. In 1931 she was at her most vivacious, and her sexiest. The songs in this movie require no great musical talent and Colbert carries them off with ease.



Miriam Hopkins is less at ease with the musical numbers but apart from that she does well and her transformation from dowdy princess to smouldering sex kitten is impressive.

For a musical this movie is actually a bit light on musical numbers, and those that are included aren’t particularly memorable. That seems to me to be a weakness of the Lubitsch musicals - a lack of catchy tunes.

My other issue with this movie is with the character of Niki, and indeed with all the characters Maurice Chevalier played for Lubitsch. We’re supposed to see Niki as the personification of European sophistication but if sophistication means having the morals of an alley cat then I’m glad I’m not sophisticated. The bottom line is that Niki is not cheerfully naughty; he’s an utter swine with no redeeming qualities and I found myself detesting him. And he’s smarmy with it. Both Franzi and the princess would have been much better off without him.



There’s certainly plenty of pre-code immorality in this film. We’re left in no doubt about the nature of Niki’s relationship with Franzi, and we’re equally left in no doubt that his marital problems with the Princess Anna are all about sex. If that’s the sort of thing that floats your boat then you’ll enjoy this movie. Personally I’m starting to find the pre-code celebration of immorality increasingly empty and tiresome.

This is one of the four movies in Criterion’s Eclipse boxed set of Lubitsch musicals. It’s a decent transfer but there are no extras.

The Smiling Lieutenant tries very hard to be fun but Maurice Chevalier is an actor whose charm all too quickly becomes irritating. The movie is worth seeing for Claudette Colbert at her sparkling best. Recommended, but only if you can endure Maurice Chevalier.