To try and kick-start her show-business career, our heroine admits to a Chicago murder. But although Cook County don't seem to let dames swing, and even with top slippery lawyer Billy Flynn... See full summary »
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To try and kick-start her show-business career, our heroine admits to a Chicago murder. But although Cook County don't seem to let dames swing, and even with top slippery lawyer Billy Flynn, it's all something of a gamble. Written by
Jeremy Perkins <jwp@aber.ac.uk>
I'm a cynical person but this famous oldie seems to go beyond cynical. Its humor has a jaded quality I find unappealing.
Ginger Rogers, away from her home studio of RKO and in dark curls, is fun. She was a fine comedienne and -- as we get to see a bit of here -- of course a fine dancer. The rest of the cast is good. In fact, it's a great supporting cast.
George Montgomery's performance is a revelation. He tells the story, noir-style, in flashback. He's good as the tired, disappointed man in the present. And as the reporter who's wary of Roxie's plots with her show-biz lawyer (Adolph Menjou), he is very strong.
I think of him as the onetime husband of Dinah Shore and as an actor in Westerns. Maybe the direction his career took was his own choice. But he could have been an excellent comic straightman and he would have been sensational in noir.
Strange how many actors with varied, interesting careers in the 1930s and 1940s turned to, and are best known today, for Westerns. These include Randolph Scott, who was no loss the other genres, and the suave, immensely appealing, and talented Joel McCrea.
13 of 18 people found this review helpful.
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I'm a cynical person but this famous oldie seems to go beyond cynical. Its humor has a jaded quality I find unappealing.
Ginger Rogers, away from her home studio of RKO and in dark curls, is fun. She was a fine comedienne and -- as we get to see a bit of here -- of course a fine dancer. The rest of the cast is good. In fact, it's a great supporting cast.
George Montgomery's performance is a revelation. He tells the story, noir-style, in flashback. He's good as the tired, disappointed man in the present. And as the reporter who's wary of Roxie's plots with her show-biz lawyer (Adolph Menjou), he is very strong.
I think of him as the onetime husband of Dinah Shore and as an actor in Westerns. Maybe the direction his career took was his own choice. But he could have been an excellent comic straightman and he would have been sensational in noir.
Strange how many actors with varied, interesting careers in the 1930s and 1940s turned to, and are best known today, for Westerns. These include Randolph Scott, who was no loss the other genres, and the suave, immensely appealing, and talented Joel McCrea.