The movie opens in Rangoon. Tanya Borodoff (Kay Francis) and Tony Evans (Ricardo Cortez) are very much in love. Tony isn’t what you would call a respectable citizen. He’s a gun-runner. Tanya doesn’t mind. Tony has a big deal going with nightclub-owner Nick (Warner Oland). Tony has a problem - he doesn’t have the cash to pay for a shipment of guns and Nick won’t offer him credit. Nick offers Tony a tempting deal - he can have the money for the guns in exchange for Tanya. No decent man would sell his girlfriend, and certainly not to a man with Nick’s reputation. But money is money and women are easily replaced.
Nick’s nightclub is more than just a nightclub, it’s a brothel as well. Nick needs a new hostess to take charge and Tanya has the beauty and the class needed for the job.
Tanya is devastated, for a couple of hours. Then she shrugs her shoulders and accepts the situation. We are certainly meant to realise that Tanya has been, and is, somewhat flexible and free-and-easy in her morals. And she knows how to handle men.
She is now known as Spot White. She’s a success, but she is implicated in one scandal after another, as one man after another ruins himself over her. The British police commissioner in Rangoon decides to deport her, or at least he intends to deport her until she reminds him of certain indiscretions with the fair sex of which he has been guilty.
Tanya’s life in Rangoon has been rather exhausting so she decides to head for somewhere quiet to take things easy for a while. Mandalay sounds promising. On the steamer to Mandalay she meets Dr Gregory Burton (Lyle Talbot).
In classic melodrama style lots of plot twists follow, Tanya is caught between two men and all three main characters are trying to escape their pasts.
Ricardo Cortez was one of those actors whose careers were almost entirely ruined by the Production Code but in his pre-code heyday he was a solid second-tier star who was always very watchable. He always seemed to play characters who were up to no good, men with whom the heroine should avoid becoming entangled, but he was always fun.
Kay Francis was a huge star in the pre-code era but by the late 30s her career had more or less fizzled out. Like Ricardo Cortez she was a star who could only thrive in the free-and-easy atmosphere of pre-code Hollywood.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Lyle Talbot as well.
All three give extremely effective performances but the movie belongs to Kay Francis. She also gets to wear some fabulous slinky 30s dresses and she looks great. She’s absolutely at the top of her game here.
There’s no shortage of pre-code wickedness in Mandalay. Tanya is a high-class hooker and a sexual adventuress but she certainly isn’t condemned for making such choices. It’s better than just being a victim and feeling sorry for yourself which was the only other option available to her.
The plot goes places that would have been totally off-limits after 1934 and the ending is very pre-code indeed.
Michael Curtiz directs with style and energy, as he always did.
This movie demonstrates just how good Hollywood was in those days in creating exotic atmosphere without the need to do location shooting in exotic places. In fact the exotic overheated atmosphere in these early 30s tropical melodramas has a special magic that was lost when location shooting became all the rage. This is not reality. This is the fantasy world of Hollywood movies which is much more exciting and alluring.
This is top-notch sin and depravity in the tropics stuff. Mandalay is very highly recommended.
Mandalay is included in the Warner Archive Forbidden Hollywood Vol 6 set and it gets a very nice transfer.
She is now known as Spot White. She’s a success, but she is implicated in one scandal after another, as one man after another ruins himself over her. The British police commissioner in Rangoon decides to deport her, or at least he intends to deport her until she reminds him of certain indiscretions with the fair sex of which he has been guilty.
Tanya’s life in Rangoon has been rather exhausting so she decides to head for somewhere quiet to take things easy for a while. Mandalay sounds promising. On the steamer to Mandalay she meets Dr Gregory Burton (Lyle Talbot).
Ricardo Cortez was one of those actors whose careers were almost entirely ruined by the Production Code but in his pre-code heyday he was a solid second-tier star who was always very watchable. He always seemed to play characters who were up to no good, men with whom the heroine should avoid becoming entangled, but he was always fun.
Kay Francis was a huge star in the pre-code era but by the late 30s her career had more or less fizzled out. Like Ricardo Cortez she was a star who could only thrive in the free-and-easy atmosphere of pre-code Hollywood.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Lyle Talbot as well.
There’s no shortage of pre-code wickedness in Mandalay. Tanya is a high-class hooker and a sexual adventuress but she certainly isn’t condemned for making such choices. It’s better than just being a victim and feeling sorry for yourself which was the only other option available to her.
The plot goes places that would have been totally off-limits after 1934 and the ending is very pre-code indeed.
This movie demonstrates just how good Hollywood was in those days in creating exotic atmosphere without the need to do location shooting in exotic places. In fact the exotic overheated atmosphere in these early 30s tropical melodramas has a special magic that was lost when location shooting became all the rage. This is not reality. This is the fantasy world of Hollywood movies which is much more exciting and alluring.
This is top-notch sin and depravity in the tropics stuff. Mandalay is very highly recommended.
Mandalay is included in the Warner Archive Forbidden Hollywood Vol 6 set and it gets a very nice transfer.
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