Wonder Bar is a 1934 American pre-Code musical drama film directed by Lloyd Bacon, with musical numbers choreographed and directed by Busby Berkeley. It is an adaptation of a Broadway musical of the same name that Al Jolson had starred in.
It stars Al Jolson, Kay Francis, Dolores del Río, Ricardo Cortez, Dick Powell, Guy Kibbee, Ruth Donnelly, Hugh Herbert, Louise Fazenda, Fifi D'Orsay, Merna Kennedy, Henry O'Neill, Robert Barrat, Henry Kolker, and Spencer Charters in the main roles.
For its time, Wonder Bar was considered risqué, barely passing the censors at the Hays Office. One musical number in particular, "Goin' to Heaven on a Mule", in which heaven was depicted with hundreds of Black People eating watermelon while they sang and danced, was considered in bad taste even in its day.
Plot The film is set in a Paris nightclub, with the stars playing the 'regulars' at the club. The movie revolves around two main story points, a romance and a more serious conflict with death, and several minor plots. All of the stories are enlivened from time to time by extravagant musical numbers.
The more serious story revolves around Captain Von Ferring (Robert Barrat), a German military officer. Ferring has gambled on the stock market and lost, now broke after dozens of failed investments, he is at the Wonder Bar to try and pull a one-night stand before killing himself the following day. Al Wonder (Al Jolson) knows about Ferring's plan.
Meanwhile, an elaborate romance is unfolding. The bar's central attraction is the Latin lounge dancing group led by Inez. Al Wonder has a secret attraction to Inez, who has a burning passion for Harry.
However, Harry is two-timing her with Liane (Kay Francis), who is married to the famous French banker Renaud (Henry Kolker). The story comes to a climax when Inez finds out that Harry and Liane plan to run away together and head to the United States. Inez, in a haze of jealousy, kills Harry.
Subplots are much lighter in nature. They involve several drunken routines by two businessmen and Al Wonder's various narrations as emcee of the floor show and manager of the club.
There are multiple songs and elaborate musical sequences performed by Al Wonder, Liane, Inez and Harry and Tommy, with the musical finale featuring a thirteen minute production with over 200 performers, and Al Jolson performing in blackface.
Cast
Al Jolson as Al Wonder Kay Francis as Liane Dolores del Río as Inez Ricardo Cortez as Harry Dick Powell as Tommy Guy Kibbee as Simpson Ruth Donnelly as Mrs. Simpson Hugh Herbert as Pratt Louise Fazenda as Mrs. Pratt Hal Le Roy as Hal Fifi D'Orsay as Mitzi Merna Kennedy as Claire Henry O'Neill as Richard - the Maitre'd Robert Barrat as Captain Hugo Von Ferring Henry Kolker as Mr. R.H. Renaud Spencer Charters as Pete
Background and production The film is based on a German play, Die Wunderbar, written by Géza Herczeg, Robert Katscher and Karl Farkas. The American broadway play, which Jolson starred in, was originally owned by Joseph M. Schenck, who sold it to Jack Warner for the film adaptation. Jolson said at the time that this movie would be his last, as he could make more money on the radio. He claimed that "playing in this picture" cost him a $100,000 radio contract.
When Warner Bros. announced the film, some of the potential stars listed to appear in the project included Joan Blondell, Adolphe Menjou, Aline MacMahon, Bette Davis, Glenda Farrell, Pat O'Brien, Lyle Talbot, Claire Dodd, Warren William and Allen Jenkins, alongside Jolson, Davis, Powell and Kibbee. Several of the cast members listed eventually "bowed out", because they felt like it was a "case of playing second fiddle to Al Jolson." American film director Frank Borzage was originally scheduled to direct the film. The movie was the feature film debut for seven-year-old Dick Jones, who had an uncredited role as "boy".
A huge indoor set, that covered an area equal to two city blocks, had to be constructed to house Busby Berkeley's elaborate chorus scenes. The construction crew included iron-workers, who built an iron track near the roof of the soundstage to carry the derricks, machinery, camera, and sound equipment, in order for Berkeley to make the "top shots." The set also required a massive amount of lighting that would have lit up a city of 20,000 people. The production required five weeks for shooting, and in addition, another five weeks were needed just for Berkeley's musical numbers.
Berkeley recalls that for the musical number "Don't Say Goodnight", the construction crew had to build sixty tall white movable columns, that moved against a black background; the columns were on separate tracks, independent of each other and all controlled electrically. That scene alone featured a hundred performers that danced with the columns, and then the columns would disappear, being replaced by a forest of silver trees with a white reindeer. In order to achieve this effect, he built an octagon of mirrors, each twenty-eight feet high and twelve feet wide, and inside this octagon was a revolving platform twenty-four feet in diameter.
Berkeley said there was skepticism from the studio, because they thought with all the mirrors, the camera would be seen. He says he figured out how not for the cameras to be seen by using eight little makeup compacts, and discovered there was a way of moving at the center of the mirrors without being reflected. Berekely said in order for the camera operator to film the sequence, they dug a hole in the stage floor and "put the camera on the piece of pipe; the operator then laid flat on his stomach underneath the stage and crawled and moved around slowly with the turning of the camera."
In 1934, choreographer Larry Ceballos filed a $100,000 lawsuit against Warner Bros. and Berkeley with two claims. The second claim alleged that Berkeley "poached a dance idea" for the film Wonder Bar, which involved mirrors to create a mise-en-abyme effect. In response, the studio's contract lawyer said he was confident Ceballos's claim had "no basis." Ceballos eventually lost his lawsuit on both claims.
Cast experiences Photoplay reported that some members of the cast were not happy with their parts, and that no one on the lot wanted to play in the picture and practically everybody in the cast was dragged in. With the exception of Dolores Del Rio, whom Jolson personally picked for her part, "every player in the picture came to work in handcuffs, so to speak."
Kay Francis said she didn't like the part the first time it was suggested to her, and after she got the script, she liked it less, complaining it was essentially a bit part. She went on to say that it was a part any one of twenty girls on the set could play just as well as her. She told them she didn't want to do it, but the studio insisted, and Francis played the part without any rewrites.
Almost unanimously, the players in the cast felt that Francis had ample grounds for her feeling. Author and film historian James Robert Parish says that one reason for her dissatisfaction is because Bacon had cut some of Francis's scenes to highlight more of Del Rio, and "the front office, annoyed by the demands and temperament of their top goddess, joyfully approved the changes."
Dick Powell said when they talked to him about the project, he told them he didn't want to do it, because he knew Jolson would never let another singer do anything in it, but he didn't know how much Jolson wouldn't until he took the good song that was assigned to him, and in exchange, gave him the eight bars Jolson didn't like. He stated that he went up to the office two or three times, in an attempt to be taken off the picture, but it didn't happen. He remarked: "I've got to go through with it and take the crumbs that fall my way."
Harry Warren, the music composer for the film, recalled that writing for Jolson really wasn't a problem, and he never criticized his and Al Dubin's work, but Jolson was "dying to get his name on the sheet music." Warren said that Jolson had asked the pair if he could just write a verse or two, which he had done with other songwriters, but the pair was adamant that his name wouldn't appear on their material. Warren went on to say that "it was great to have Jolson do your songs—he really knew how to put them over—but he liked people to think they were all his."
Censorship issues Film historian Mark Vieira says the film faced censorship issues with the Studio Relations Committee (SRC) of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), who applied the Hays Code to film production. In October 1933, producer and story editor Robert Lord presented Earl Baldwin's script to the SRC. James Wingate, who was partially responsible for enforcing the code, recommended thirteen changes to the script, including removal of the "irregular sex relationship" between Dolores Del Rio and her partner, Ricardo Cortez, who whips her. After receiving the recommendations, Lord told producer Hal Wallis: "The changes demanded by the Hays Office seem to me even more idiotic than usual. I would earnestly recommend that we go ahead and make the picture as is." Wallis went ahead and made a few of the recommended changes, submitted those back to Wingate, and then just ignored him.
In December 1933, the project was behind schedule and Lord was still busy working on two of the musical numbers, which included the finale, "Goin’ to Heaven on a Mule". Lord once again dropped a line to Wallis: "Granted, no intelligent person could object to it but the various boards of censorship throughout the country have never been distinguished for their intelligence." At this point, Lord had two options, he could discuss it with Jason Joy of the SRC, before moving forward with the number, or just go ahead and make it, and then show it to the SRC, hoping they would listen to their reasoning for including the number, if the SRC voiced any objections. Instead, Lord chose option three, which was to show the film to Joy and Geoffrey Shurlock, without including the two numbers, assuring them that "there was nothing to worry about in the two numbers."
After the film's release, Joseph Breen, was put in charge with enforcing the production code. When Hays Office counsel Vincent Hart viewed the film two months after it was already in theatres, he went to Breen and reported that there was "one item which the audience did not seem to relish." Hart told Breen that the scene in question was in the ballroom "where a man and a woman are shown dancing, and into the scene comes an effeminate-looking youth who taps the dancing man on the shoulder and asks 'May I cut in?' whereupon the man dancing with the girl smiles, leaves her, and the two men dance off together." Breen then proceeded to check the film's script they had on file, and he found it on page 25: "The man and the youth dance off together — the girl walks disgustedly off the floor."
Breen was unhappy the scene had been overlooked, or simply ignored, by the previous SRC, so he fired off a letter to Jack Warner requesting that he be allowed to see a screening of the entire film. After a week had gone by with no response from Warner, or anyone else at the studio, he told members of his office staff that: "it is quite evident that this gentleman is giving me the run-around; he evidently thinks that this is the smart thing to do." Nonetheless, even though Breen never received a response from Warner, he was pleased when the state censorship boards in Ohio and Pennsylvania cut the scene.
Musical numbers