Broadway Reviews

In the 1920s, successful entertainer returns to New York and the Paradise Club, where his career started, which he discovers is being turned into a bowling alley. Raft begins to think back to his palmy days and, in flashback, the old club comes alive as Raft narrates his story to the building's night watchman. We see Raft as a young hoofer teamed with Blair in a club run by Sakall. Over the course of the film, Raft has run-ins with gangster Crawford and cop O'Brien, all the while romancing Blair. The best part of this chestnut, remade from the bones of the 1929 film, are the 14 1920s tunes, and the brassy performance of Rambeau, who does a good impersonation of Texas Guinan for whom Raft actually worked as a dancer in the 1920s in her notorious El Fey Club (the story could have been Raft's biography to some degree). Songs include "Dinah," (Joe Young, Sam Lewis, Harry Akst), "Alabamy Bound" (Buddy De Sylva, Bud Green, Ray Henderson), "Sweet Georgia Brown" (Ben Bernie, Kenneth Casey, Maceo Pinkard), "The Darktown Strutters Ball," "Some of These Days" (Sheldon Brooks), "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" (Gus Kahn). Blair sings "I'm Just Wild About Harry" (Eubie Blake, Noble Sissle), and Raft does an incredibly wild Charleston. Before going into this frantic dance, Raft announces to backstage cronies what his act will do to the audience: "I'm gonna cut 'em deep and let 'em bleed!" He sure does.