CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Hulkeasexo it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Derry Herrera Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

ksf-2 The title actually says "Adventures in Africa", but it's listed on Turner Classics as "Bright Lights!". and the trivia says there's a lost technicolor version, but personally i'm glad its in glorious black and white... i like my early talkies to be in charming but ancient black and white. a bare minimum of a story. In this show-within-a-show, Frank Fay is Wally, the emcee of the big production. Dorothy Mackaill is Louanne, about to leave the show and marry into money. the other big names are Noah Beery as the interloper, and funny guy Frank McHugh as the reporter, always lurking about. he's listed way down in the credits, but he's in almost every scene. one of his first roles in hollywood. This was before any film code, so there's an abundance of cleavage and walking around in night-gowns. one of the running gags is the Averys, husband and wife who are continually nagging each other. LOTS of song and dance numbers, but it keeps moving along. it's fun... light and fluffy. A Curtiz production... probably his best known films were Casablanca and Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Jimmy L. A Broadway star is giving up the stage to marry a millionaire, but she might be happier with the man who brought her up through the showbiz ranks.BRIGHT LIGHTS (1930) is ultimately a movie about a show business family and how everyone supports each other. The action takes place on the night of Louanne's (Dorothy Mackaill) last performance in a successful musical revue before settling down with a rich society type. Louanne's co-star Wally (Frank Fay) has been with her through the ups and downs, and in fact groomed Louanne to be the star she's become. Wally loves Louanne and wants nothing but the best for her, even if that means letting her marry another man.Director Michael Curtiz uses flashback sequences to contrast Louanne's press-friendly account of her "innocent" past with the more vulgar realities of her life (dancing the hula in African saloons and cheap carnivals). When her past threatens to ruin her impending marriage, Wally steps in to protect her.I'd recently seen Dorothy Mackaill in another talkie and was disappointed with her performance, but she's much better here. Much more "alive", joking around with Fay in an early scene in her dressing room and doing her fair share of singing and dancing in the musical numbers. Frank Fay plays his role like an old pro. He made relatively few movies in his career but I still find ones I haven't seen before.Joining them in the cast is Inez Courtney, who pops up in lots of early-'30s films as the female lead's funny friend. She's awfully cute here as another performer whose boyfriend (THE CROWD's James Murray) makes a business deal with a ghost from Louanne's past. That ghost (and the villain of the piece) is Noah Beery Sr., playing a Portuguese (?!) diamond smuggler from Louanne's African days. Frank McHugh is the inebriated reporter who hangs around backstage and Tom Dugan and frequent Laurel & Hardy co-star Daphne Pollard play a battling married couple in the company.The cast of the show-within-the-show, along with their romantic partners, the stage manager, the security guard, and the usual crowd buzzing around backstage make up a sort of close-knit family, and it's touching to see how they cover for each other when the theater becomes the scene of a murder investigation.There are several musical routines featured within the context of the story. The songs are nothing special and the choreography isn't very elaborate (we're not talking about Busby Berkeley here), but it might've been the bee's knees back in the very early days of film musicals. The opening number is an ode to New York City (including a bizarre Wall Street set piece), and there's a "rah rah" college-themed number and an exotic "cannibal" number.Some of the jokes fall flat, but the cast is engaging and the film balances music, romance, comedy, and suspense all in a comfortable sixty-nine minutes.TCM aired BRIGHT LIGHTS under its rather misleading re-release name ADVENTURES IN_AFRICA.

JohnHowardReid Maria Montez was once quite rightly dubbed Queen of Technicolor. As for the King? Well, there was a King, true, but he wasn't an actor (at least not a regular actor). He was director Michael Curtiz, called the King of Technicolor because it was claimed he directed more Technicolor (two-strip and three-strip Technicolor, that is) movies than anyone else. A difficult assertion to prove or disprove. Certainly Curtiz was King of Technicolor on the Warner Bros. lot. Maybe over-all. I'll leave that for some other researcher to ponder. What we do know for a fact is that 1930 was one of Technicolor's greatest years. Sixteen full-length features plus one, M-G-M's The March of Time shelved and never released, plus eighteen features with Technicolor sequences, totals thirty-five — a figure not exceeded until 1948. Warner Bros.-First National were responsible for no less than sixteen of these Technicolor releases, but only three were directed by Curtiz: Bright Lights, Under a Texas Moon and sequences in Mammy. Just about all the Warner-First National output were musicals (no wonder the public tired of the genre so quickly in 1930). Bright Lights is no exception. It's a shame in fact that even more songs weren't packed in to edge out even more of the silly story. It would have to be the most stupid, most idiotic, most unbelievable, most melodramatically ridiculous plot I've ever encountered. At least it's original. No-one would ever want to copy or imitate it, that's for sure!However, the story does allow us to evaluate the players, particularly lovely, charismatic, almost forgotten, British-born Dorothy Mackaill, a big star in silents who made the transition to sound with no problems at all, but was left on the sidelines when Warner Brothers bought out First National and began trimming National's star roster at the height of the Depression. Another problem – not of Dorothy's making, but entirely the fault of Jack Warner – was that her vehicles were not popular with the public. This one, chock-a-bloc with elaborate production numbers, hit theaters when the public was absolutely fed up with musicals. Hence a desperate title change to Adventures in Africa which was not only inappropriate – the "African" footage didn't amount to more than ten minutes – but wildly deceptive. So who did people blame? Jack Warner? No! Mike Curtiz? No! "Humph" Pearson and Henry McCarty? No! Even over-zealous Frank Fay who out-stays his welcome. No! This was only Fay's third feature film, and he had no box office drawing power anyway. For 99% of moviegoers, Dorothy Mackaill was number one on their hit list. My dad thought that the sole function of producers was to shell out the money and that directors were in charge of photography and other technical aspects. As for the stars – they made up their own scripts and directed themselves! And those notions was shared by almost the entire line-up of rank-and-file picturegoers. So if they hated Adventures in Africa – which they did (in spades) – the number one (and perhaps only) figure on their hate lists was Dorothy Mackaill. True, Frank McHugh's inebriated reporter hit the spot, but his routines ranked a poor second to all that singing and dancing – which you and I love, but which back in 1931, just about everyone from critics to choir boys hated!

calvinnme ... in one of the wacky early talkies that I bet Michael Curtiz wishes he could have erased from his resume.I give this 7 stars mainly for the early talkie fan. It really is pretty good for a 1930 back-stager and pretty original. The alternate title "Adventures in Africa" is rather puzzling since the movie spends all of ten minutes there, in a South African cabaret. However these are important moments as the conclusion to the entire story is dependent on events there.The movie opens with Louanne's (Dorothy Mackaill) last night on the Broadway stage as she is marrying the wealthy Fairchild after the show. Fairchild is accompanied by his sour-faced mother and sister who look more like they are going to a funeral than a wedding since they are none too happy about the family heir marrying an entertainer. Frank Fay has a very good role here as Wally, the man who has been Louanne's protector and somewhat on-stage partner for years. Wally is definitely in love with Louanne, and Louanne seems to have a bit of a thing for Wally in spite of her engagement, although the love has remained unrequited. If you think it the thing of curiosity seekers to see Frank Fay playing romantic lead to Dorothy Mackail, then think again. The two have real chemistry.The fly in the ointment? Noah Beery as the diamond smuggler Miguel who resents Louanne because she once forcefully resisted his attempted rape. Honestly, Mr. Beery! Didn't Warner Brothers ever think you plausible as simply asking a girl out for dinner and a show? In every early Warner Brothers talkie in which I've seen Mr. Beery he's either threatening human sacrifice (Golden Dawn) or execution by firing squad (Noah's Ark) in order to have his way with a woman.Besides all of the drama, there are some really great musical numbers, some bizarre to the point of being charming. The opening number has Frank Fay in a big musical production entitled "Wall Street". From the lyrics people didn't like bankers any more in 1930 than they do today. After seeing Dorothy Mackail scantily clad for the tropical hula number "Cannibal Love" in which her fellow cannibals yield shields with crosses on them - maybe they ate some Crusaders??? - she returns for "Man About Town" dressed like Fred Astaire in tuxedo and tails with her blonde hair hidden under her top hat. The grand prize for most bizarre number has to go to a very short jazz number performed in the South African club by an unnamed stout short female singer with a booming voice accompanied by a rather clumsy chorus dancing right behind her. It looks as if any of the chorines took a wrong step and kicked just a little harder the jazz singing dynamo would have taken it right in the pants and landed in the front row of the audience.Also look out for Frank McHugh as a drunken fresh reporter who even in 1930 is sporting his trademark mischievous laugh and James Murray of "The Crowd" in a rare talkie appearance.I watched the Warner Archive copy of Bright Lights, and if you want to see it the way it should be seen I would advise getting a copy of this restored version. It doesn't have that fuzzy look that black and white copies of two strip Technicolor films generally have, and the picture and sound are crisp and clear throughout.