Mandalay (film)

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Movie
Original title Mandalay
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1934
length 65 minutes
Rod
Director Michael Curtiz
script Paul Hervey Fox
production Michael Curtiz for Warner Brothers
music Sammy Fain
Heinz Roemheld
camera Tony Gaudio
cut Thomas Pratt
occupation

Mandalay is a 1934 American film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Kay Francis . The film was distributed immediately before the tightened censorship regulations came into effect and goes so far in its portrayal of prostitution, human trafficking and unpunished capital crime that it was no longer allowed to be shown commercially in later years.

action

Tanya Borodoff is a young naive woman who travels through Southeast Asia with her lover, the criminal Tony Evans. When Tony is threatened by his creditors in Rangoon, he sells Tanya to Nick, the owner of the most expensive brothel in town. Tanya is desperate at first, but soon she rises as Spot White to the attraction of the establishment and has customers from the best of society. She lives in great luxury, but inside she feels empty and disillusioned. One day Tanya is supposed to be deported, but in return she blackmailed a high-ranking official of the colonial government for 10,000 rupees and a promise not to be deported. Tanya points out to the perplexed man that she was at least his itty-bitty baby at a masquerade ball . To protect his reputation, he writes a check to Tanya. A happy Tanya comments on the coup with the words:

"Not a bad price for not being deported."

She escapes on a steamer in the direction of Mandalay, where she meets Dr. Gregory Burton who treated her. The doctor is on the run from his conscience because he is responsible for the deaths of many innocent people who died because he did not observe hygiene regulations. Both discover their feelings for each other and want to start a new future together when suddenly Tony reappears and threatens Tanya to reveal her past. Tanya poisons Tony, who falls overboard into the river in agony without any of the passengers noticing what had happened. Tanya and Dr. Gregory decide to atone for their guilt by fighting a deadly disease in the jungles of Burma.

background

Kay Francis moved from Paramount to Warner Brothers in 1932 in the course of a talent raid that was highly regarded at the time, together with Ruth Chatterton and William Powell , with the promise of more salary and better roles. While Powell and Chatterton left the studio more or less quickly, Francis stayed with Warners and played whatever role the studio offered her as long as her name was above the title and she got her salary on time. Unlike Chatterton, she had no contractual say in the selection of roles and so she often got projects that Chatterton rejected: The House on 56th Street and Mandalay .

The film is a classic example of the so-called pre-code films, i.e. strips that were distributed in June 1934 before the Production Code came into effect . In depicting sex, prostitution, violence, corruption, blackmail, murder and treason, Mandalay goes as far as good taste would allow. The costumes are daring too. Kay Francis, who had acquired the reputation of the best-dressed women in Hollywood over the years , wears a particularly spectacular, tight-fitting dress made of gold lamé, the neckline of which is absolutely worthy of an exclusive prostitute. While it is not openly stated what kind of establishment Nick's Place is, in which Tanya is sold, the dialogue between Tanya and Tony clears up all misunderstandings:

"What are these girls?" (What kind of girls are these?)
"Just like café girls anywhere." (Cafe maid, like everywhere)
"You mean ..?" (You mean ...)
"I mean exactly that, my dear." (That's exactly what I mean by that, my darling ..)

The exact nature of the work that Tanya will do later is also not vague. At one point a "customer" remarks that Tanya, aka "Spot White", should be called "Spot Cash" because she is so enterprising. As the main attraction of Nick's Place, Spot White explicitly takes care of all ethnicities, including Asians, which became an absolute taboo subject after 1934. The film shows a scene at the very beginning in which Kay Francis gets naked from a bathtub to greet her lover Tony. To get the scene on screen at all, the producers had to use a trick. Francis gets out of the tub, puts on a towel and goes to the open window, on the other side of which is Cortez. They both kiss through the window and Francis loses her towel. Most serious, however, is the fact that Tanya gets away with Tony's murder more or less with impunity. Against this background, it is understandable that the film was not allowed to be shown commercially again after 1934.

To this day, it is not entirely clear whether Shirley Temple had a scene in the film. Most publications still mention Temple's name as an actress, while IMDB claims that her scenes were "deleted". The shooting took place in October 1933 partly on the San Joaquim River near Sacramento on an old paddle steamer, the Capital City .

Theatrical release

At $ 294,000, production costs were well above the usual average at Warner Brothers. Total revenues were $ 629,000, allowing the studio to end up realizing a profit of $ 83,462.

Web links

Literature on the subject of pre-code films

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Not a bad price for not being deported.