This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Claudette Colbert sizzles in this "women's film" about a girl gone bad who's forced to give her illegitimate baby up for adoption and then sets out to find her years later after she's become a famous nightclub singer.This is melodrama good and proper, folks, so be prepared to suspend your disbelief if you're going to have a chance at enjoying it. But if you give in, you might just find what I found in this film, a sexy, sometimes funny, sometimes truly affecting story about a mother's love with an absolutely sensational actress making sure you buy it hook, line and sinker. Colbert is marvelous, and I couldn't take my eyes off of her whenever she's on the screen, which fortunately is most of the time.Grade: B+

And that's Claudette Colbert, playing a not entirely plausible good-woman-turned-tough-cynic, who suffers, wisecracks, repents, and, most surprisingly, sings. That's clearly her voice taking on some decent Rainger-Robin songs, and it's a true, throaty, expressive contralto. Why didn't Paramount, which so often exploited the cheery, joie-de-vivre aspects of the Colbert personality, put her in more musicals? She's a natural. And she emotes touchingly in the soapier sections of this one, including a really devastating scene of her giving up her child. The story doesn't make a lot of sense, least of all the David Manners character, a Boston blueblood who is first portrayed as a rotter but turns out to be wonderful. Nor does Ricardo Cortez fit in easily, as Colbert's radio-manager boss; the script seems to want to suggest a romance for them, but never gets around to it. And the plot gymnastics toward the end, which are determined to give Colbert and Manners a happy ending whatever the cost to logic, are just impossible. Still, it's nicely pre-Code, never condemning Colbert for having a child out of wedlock, and quite a showcase for her many talents.

For only a 72 minute movie Torch Singer packs quite a lot into the film with Claudette Colbert playing the starring role of an unwed mother who is forced to give up her daughter as she can't locate the baby's father David Manners and his rich family won't give her the time of day. She supports herself by becoming a nightclub singer and according to a recent biography of Claudette Colbert she actually sung her own numbers which were written by songwriting team of Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger for the film. Claudette's scenes with her child, her prospective in-laws and with the nuns running the adoption facility are heartbreaking and touching on melodrama.A case of 'mike fright' scares off the prospective host of a children's radio program and sultry torch singer Claudette substitutes as the story lady who sings lullabies and tells fairy tales. Which gives her a day time career as well as a nighttime one as long as she can keep the secret. In the meantime the show affects her and decides to seek her child.Claudette proves to have a nice style as a singer much as Susan Hayward did when played Lillian Roth in I'll Cry Tomorrow. And she treads on Barbara Stanwyck territory as a woman made hard by the circumstances of her life. Ricardo Cortez who after the silent screen days ended where he played Latin lovers as a poor man's Rudolph Valentino, in sound either played smart alecks or downright heels. I was fully expecting him to be a heel in this film, but he turns out to be a nice guy as a radio executive who sympathizes with Colbert and her situation.Lyda Roberti also makes an appearance here playing a fellow unwed mother who rooms with Colbert for a while. Her character has all too little time in Torch Singer, I wish we saw more of her.Claudette Colbert whose career in 1933 was really beginning to take off moved a bit higher with this film. It holds up very well for today's audience.

It's fun to see Colbert warbling the blues (several times) and kiddies lullabies in this well made and directed soap. Unwed and unable to manage she gives up her baby and becomes a disreputable torch singer and the hottest attraction around. Colbert goes from forlorn unwed mother to Mae-Westian blues singer in a captivating role. "Realization" puts her "back on track" to find her daughter. All this in 72 minutes! Good support from Lyda Roberti, Ricardo Cortez and David Manners. It's a shame this isn't available on video.