Best movie ever!

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

This one is for fans of old Hollywood movies, Pre-code fans in particular. All the stars, and this type of movie entertainment, are long gone. If you are under the age of, say, 40, this is not your cup of tea.That leaves the rest of us, and for us this is a delightful way to spend 90 minutes. There is a lot to recommend this picture; the stars, among them Jack Oakie, Victor McLaglen, Duke Ellington, Gertrude Michael and a very fine actor in Carl Brisson, who may have been miscast. He has a good singing voice and puts over "Cocktails For Two" pretty well, but he has a distinct accent and seems uncomfortable in his star turn here. For a better look, watch Hitchcock's "The Manxman" (1928) which is a silent but shows his talent off to better advantage.The story itself is a clever mixture of murder, comedy and music. Be warned that the murder mystery part is not taken too seriously, but is a genuine mystery until the murderer becomes very obvious to the viewer. The musical part is uneven with some strange production numbers that are extremely interesting (Sweet Marijuana, Ebony Rhapsody, etc.) wrapped around Cocktails For Two. The costumes - or lack thereof on the chorus girls - are genuinely shocking for 1934. Not for nothing is this labeled a Pre-Code film.Taken separately, the elements of this picture are too lame to stand on their own, but taken as a whole, it works. "Murder At The Vanities" is more than just a curiosity but a look at a form of entertainment whose time was up years ago, but still fun to watch for those of us who can appreciate it.

This film is a very strange amalgamation of two types of films--the Busby Berkeley-style musical (like 42ND STREET, FOOTLIGHT PARADE and GOLDDIGGERS OF 1933) combined with a B-mystery. And, on top of that, the film has Pre-Code sensibilities that would shock most today. The newly strengthened Production Code was enacted in 1934 and this one snuck in just before it was adopted. As a result, a lot of surprising material got into the film, such as a song and dance number called "Marijuana" as well as the skimpiest costumes you can find in showgirls during the era. Heck, making them totally naked wouldn't have been that different than what you see here! Purely because of its Pre-Code excesses it's worth seeing! Now is this weird concoction worth seeing other than for lovers of Pre-Code films? Well, yes, but only if you have a high tolerance for lots and lots of singing and dancing. The film abounds with one enormous production number after another and to be quite frank, other than Marijuana, the other songs are amazingly forgettable. So is the dancing, unless you really love trying to sneak peeks at all the exposed flesh--trying to see if you can catch sight of something a bit more! As for the mystery, it is interesting but unfortunately it's obscured by all this singing. However, most of the characters (such as those played by Jack Oakie and Victor McLaglen) were enjoyable and helped to obscure the odd casting of Carl Brisson despite his heavy accent. His singing was just fine, but when it came to romance and acting, he did seem like a very unlikely actor for this film.Overall, it's a passable film but a real treat for those who love to see and marvel at the very loose morals of the Pre-Code films. They just don't come a lot looser than this!

This murder mystery with musical numbers is long on atmosphere and character but rather short on suspense and plausibility. Based on a stage play by Broadway showman Earl Carroll and others, it combines a whodunit plot with a backstage ambiance (a homicide investigation takes place on opening night at the theatre where a musical revue is being staged).The cast is impressive and varied: tough-goofy Victor McLaglen as the police officer who leads the investigation and never fails to leer idiotically at whatever showgirl happens to be in sight; Jack Oakie (the prewar Jack Lemmon – or was Jack Lemmon the postwar Jack Oakie?) as the harassed director who must coordinate the staged performance as well as the chaos behind the scenes; the ever-homely Jessie Ralph as a wardrobe mistress with deep, dark secrets; Dorothy Stickney, who has a stunning close-up monologue near the end, as the tremulous maid madly in love with the male lead; Carl Brisson, the Danish star, as that very male lead, warbling the classic "Cocktails for Two" not once but twice; Kitty Carlisle, operatically delivering "Where Do They Come from and Where Do They Go" and other Johnston-Coslow songs; the glorious Gertrude Michael, who parted from us too soon, as a mean-spirited showgirl whose love for Brisson is spurned; the usually ridiculous Toby Wing who here at least is the center of a laugh-getting running joke.When the plot complications get out of hand there is always an interesting performer or fun and tuneful musical number to distract the viewer. The film's most celebrated sequence is the "Marahuana" number, led by Michaels, but aside from its controversial history, it's really one of the lesser musical offerings. All of the songs here are staged as if they could actually have fit into a standard proscenium theatre space, as opposed to the cinematic fantasy setup of the Busby Berkeley style.

Mitchell Leisen's fifth feature as director, and he shows his versatility by directing a musical, after his previous movies were heavy dramas. He also plays a cameo as the conductor.You can tell it is a pre code movie, and nothing like it was made in the US for quite a while afterwards (like 30+ years). Leisen shot the musical numbers so they were like what the audience would see - no widescreen shots or from above ala Busby Berkeley. What I do find funny or interesting is that you never actually see the audience.As others have mentioned the leads are fairly characterless, and Jack Oakie and Victor McLaghlan play their normal movie personas. Gertrude Michael however provides a bit of spark.The musical numbers are interesting and some good (the Rape of the Rhapsody in particular is amusing) but the drama unconvincing and faked - three murders is too many and have minimal emotional impact on the characters. This is where this movie could have been a lot better.