Gary Lee
People forget that "King of Burlesque" was made BEFORE those other movies that used the same plot which other reviewers have referred to. So what was becoming "run of the mill" by 1938 or 1943 was still reasonably "original" in 1935/1936. Also, the plot isn't as hokey (for me at least) when it's a musical COMEDY rather than musical DRAMA/MELODRAMA as it was in those later movies. Hey, it's not to be taken too seriously ... and I still enjoyed watching Mona Barrie "giving it to" that upstart social climber Warner Baxter.Actually, I searched for this movie because I vaguely remembered seeing Fats Waller in it when it was shown on TV decades ago. So I was surprised how much I enjoyed Dixie Dunbar's tap dancing routine when I finally got to see it.
bkoganbing
The title role in King of Burlesque is played by Warner Baxter who is the impresario of burlesque down on East 14 Street and Irving Place. But he aspires to higher things and won't be satisfied until he's a monarch on Broadway. For that he's willing to marry up with Mona Barrie an impoverished society girl and leave the faithful Alice Faye behind. Of course this is not a permanent situation.Probably the biggest fault with King of Burlesque is that Warner Baxter does not come over like the hero/heel that Tyrone Power and later John Payne would be in dealing with Alice Faye. He's just too nice for the role.But the film is a real treat for Alice Faye's legion of fans. She gets to sing I'm Shooting High and Spreading Rhythm Around. And I really did like the number she did with British comic actor Herbert Mundin, I Love To Ride The Horses On The Merry Go Round.Radio singer Kenny Baker gets into this film with Lovely Lady for which I have a Bing Crosby recording. Baker had a nice pleasing tenor voice who made his best mark on radio. Around this time he was a regular on Jack Benny's radio program.And King of Burlesque gives fans of Dixieland jazz a real treat in one of the few film appearances of the legendary pianist Fats Waller. Waller plays an elevator operator who Baxter finally gives a break to in his new show and he plays and sings I've Got My Fingers Crossed.Jimmy McHugh and Ted Koehler did the score for King of Burlesque and the numbers are fine. Elements of the plot were done in Alice Faye's later film, Hello Frisco Hello. That one was better, but this one is not bad other than Baxter's miscasting.
jpickerel
Contains a cast of veteran (by then) actors and actresses, whose combined presence would normally be counted on to produce a top notch musical, but is somehow lacking the punch to put it completely over the top. The writing isn't really crisp, either; Jack Oakie could have phoned this one in. Neither is the music itself memorable, although the closer, "Who's Big Baby are You?" might have had you humming on the way out of the theater. Bright spots were few, but a Fats Waller number is something to look for, and Mona Barrie is fine as the calculating Broadway socialite. Perhaps this is one that would really benefit from being seen on the big screen. Television doesn't do it justice, maybe.
timothymcclenaghan
It seems many other contributing members are hypercritical of older films. Most films made in the 1930s and 1940s weren't meant to be memorable, just enjoyed for a brief time and then to be forgotten. Now television has resurrected them so people can look at them again.This film is typical of the era in which it was made. I did notice that it has some plot devices which re-appear in later 20th Century-Fox films (some of which also featured Alice Faye): The low-class man aspiring to high society and "a dame with class" repeated in "Hello Frisco Hello" and "Nob Hill", and Faye's getting passed up for another woman, then going off to London to be a big success on the stage there. Never let it be said that Darryl Zanuck didn't get mileage out of his story lines.Here we see Faye early in her career as a Jean Harlow knock-off, with platinum blonde hair and pencil-thin eyebrows. Not too long after this film, her appearance was normalized and she began singing in a lower key which made her voice so much richer. I think she was responsible for a whole new trend for female singers. Gone was the high-pitched, nasal sound, popular in the 1920s and early 30s.For fans of tap dancing, you can watch Dixie Dunbar, whose career never amounted to much, and also there is a nice performance by juvenile Gareth Joplin, on a level equal to that of any adult performer, but who evidently did not have much of a film career either.
AD
