Bright Lights
About Bright Lights
Broadway star Louanne is giving a last performance before she retires to marry the rich Fairchild rather than Wally Dean, the man she loves. She feeds the reporters a genteel past. Flashbacks show her dancing in a cheap café, where the smuggler Miguel Parada forces himself on her, and Wally getting her out as a riot starts; another shows Wally barking a carnival where she dances. Miguel turns up in the audience, follows her to the dressing room, and is shot in a struggle over a gun. Wally, Peggy, and the reporter Fish all tell the police it was suicide. Cleared, Louanne drops Fairchild and stays with Wally.
Cast & crew
More about Bright Lights
Michael Curtiz directed for First National, a Warner Bros. subsidiary. Robert North produced. Lee Garmes and Charles Schoenbaum photographed it entirely in Technicolor. It premiered on 4 July 1930 at the Warner Theatre in Los Angeles, played New York's Warner Strand in February 1931, and was cut and rereleased in early 1931 as Adventures in Africa. The surviving copy is that shorter black-and-white version, with some numbers removed.
Themes
Background
An early two-color-era Technicolor musical from First National, released while Broadway-backstage plots were a standard pre-Code subject.
Making
The 1931 reissue, retitled Adventures in Africa, dropped musical numbers. What circulates is that edited version, not the full Technicolor premiere cut.
Look
Lee Garmes and Charles Schoenbaum shot the film in Technicolor. Only a fragment of that color photography is known to survive.
Technique
Photographed entirely in Technicolor. The color negative is not known to survive except for a small Library of Congress fragment.
Music
Songs include "Nobody Cares If I'm Blue," "I'm Crazy for Cannibal Love," "Song of the Congo," "Come Along!," "All the Pretty Girls I Know," "Wall Street," "I'm Sittin' Pretty," "Every Little Girl He Sees," "I'm Just a Man About Town," and "You're an Eyeful of Heaven."
Preservation
The known surviving print is a black-and-white copy of the shortened 1931 reissue. A small piece of the original Technicolor is at the Library of Congress.
Notes
- John Carradine's first screen appearance is a small uncredited part.
- Dorothy Mackaill plays Louanne, Frank Fay plays Wally Dean, Noah Beery plays Miguel Parada, and Frank McHugh plays the reporter Fish.
- Inez Courtney plays Peggy. Philip Strange plays Fairchild. Daphne Pollard plays Mame Avery.
- Frank Fay sings "Nobody Cares If I'm Blue," by Harry Akst and Grant Clarke. Mackaill sings "Song of the Congo," by Al Bryan and Eddie Ward, and "I'm Crazy for Cannibal Love.
- A short fragment of the original Technicolor has turned up at the Library of Congress. The rest of the known print is black and white.
Scenes
- Louanne tells the reporters a polished life story while the café and carnival flashbacks contradict her.
- Miguel comes to the dressing room and is shot in the fight over the gun.
- Fish lies that he saw Miguel pull the trigger.
