Thu 1/5 @ 7PM
The Musical Theater Project’s Bill Rudman kicks off the year with another edition of his very entertaining series, Movies at Home, in which he invites people to watch a classic movie music and the join him on Zoom to talk about it.
The first entry of 2023 is the 1929 Paramount film Applause, directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Helen Morgan stars in this very early “talkie.” (Feature-length films with synchronized sound debuted in 1927.) The black-and-whit film starts Helen Morgan as an alcoholic former burlesque star, trying to protect her daughter from ending up in the same life. As Rudman says, “Morgan and Mamoulian together make this piece compelling cinema, and the chance to watch Morgan sing Gorney & Harburg’s “What Wouldn’t I Do for That Man?” is an object lesson in American popular singing.”
The film is downbeat and explicit, what’s referred to as a “pre-code” film, made prior to 1934, before the enforcement of a set of rules banning depictions of things such as drug use, homosexuality, black/white relationships, infidelity an swear words.
Here’s what you do. First watch Rudman’s intro online in which he shares a little background and tells you what to watch for. Then watch the film on YouTube. Finally, join him and other film buffs on Zoom to talk about what you saw. It’s free and open to all; no registration is required.