It's Good but I Have One Proviso

Rating: 9/10 (15 August 2005)

It would be a waste of time for me to reissue the same old superlatives about the musical numbers, so I will have this to say about the film that has not been said before.
This film handles the transition from silent films to sound films. It has a very light-hearted attitude to this. It makes light of the fact that one leading lady can no longer function because she cannot sing and she speaks with a heavy regional accent. In reality, that woman was made redundant because of circumstances over which she had no control. And the termination of her career is about as funny as factory lay-offs. Such things, I am afraid were all too real. Jack Gilbert and Clara Bow were just two of the big stars dumped (there's no other word for it) by the Hollywood studios because their voices did not match their screen images. Emil Jannings and Vilma Banky were on the liners back to Europe because they struggled with their English. On this side of the Atlantic Mabel Poulton's star career was finished because she didn't talk posh enough for a gentile leading lady.
So next time you hear Lina Lamont's thick accent, just remember the real people whom Lina Lamont represents.
Not so funny now. Is it?