max von meyerling Review of Masks and Memories

Masks and Memories (1934)

Maybe the lady is too sophisticated, if you know what I mean.

[6/10 · 4 February 2006]

I'm always curious about these little trifles from the thirties. Often the studios have an expensive production number that was cut from a feature for one reason or another. Rather than have the expenses resting on the bottom line of that film they would have a short built around it. Hey, everybody is under contract. PLANE CRAZY with The Three Stooges is one example. The big finale of Masks and Memories is Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Lady featuring a borderline pre-code misc en scene. Two chorus lines of Hollywood blonds in flimsy full length gowns in diaphanous white, and, most importantly, back lighted, holding long cigarette holders, march up and down the stepped set making geometrical patterns while in the center of the frame there is a giant poppy blossom. There is a last shot showing one of the characters from the preceding 'story' surrounded by the chorus girls but that could have been shot later as there is no set to be seen or matched. The 'story', such as it is, plays off of one of the elements from Showboat, that is the contrast between a post-civil war Mississippi steamboat and the 'modern urban world'. Its always interesting to witness a performance by the legendary Lillian Roth, 24 at the time of this film's release, whose appearance here was the last in a motion picture until the 1970s. While her screen presence really can't be ascertained she must have been, when she was on, a magnificent vaudeville and cabaret performer.