Sleepy-17 Review of Bright Lights

Bright Lights (1935)

Incandescent rendering of timeless Boy-Gets-Famous-and-Fools-Around

[27 October 2000]

This film is only funny in a couple of spots, it features mostly static camera, routine burlesque performances, and dated humour. But Joe E Brown is incredibly confident and energetic, generating charisma by the barrelful. Patricia Ellis is quite fetching as the Bad Girl who tries to pry him from Ann Dvorak. Busby Berkeley stages some incredible shots from the ceiling of the theater where the characters are performing, and much of it is so spontaneous it seems like they're making it up on the spot. A lousy comedy, but a very interesting film. The ending scene where Brown returns to his wife's stage performance is as moving as an ending from early Fellini.