Still image from the 1934 film Mandalay.

Mandalay

Directed by Michael Curtiz

A woman with a past tries to get rid of a former lover.

1934 1h 5m Suspense/Mystery TV-G

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CAST
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Michael Curtiz, Director
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Michael Curtiz
Director

1

Kay Francis, Tanya
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Kay Francis
Tanya

2

Ricardo Cortez, Tony Evans
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Ricardo Cortez
Tony Evans

3

Warner Oland, Nick
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Warner Oland
Nick

4

Lyle Talbot, Dr. [Gregory] Burton
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Lyle Talbot
Dr. [Gregory] Burton

5

Ruth Donnelly, Mrs. Peters
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Ruth Donnelly
Mrs. Peters

FULL SYNOPSIS

Tanya, a Russian refugee, is hiding in Rangoon, Burma under the protection of her lover, Tony Evans, a gunrunner working for a weathly underworld leader named Nick. Nick wants to add Tanya to his stable of women in a decadent Rangoon club and intimidates Tony into turning her over to settle a debt. At first the abandoned Tanya refuses to cooperate with Nick, but eventually decides to beat him at his own game and uses sex to gain power. She becomes notorious for her affairs, is re-named "Spot White," and by blackmailing a British officer, gets passage money out of Rangoon. On the boat to Mandalay, she meets formerly prestigious surgeon Gergory Burton who is now exiled in Burma because of his alcoholism, and they fall in love. Unfortunately, Tony has followed her, and in an attempt to escape the authorities, he frames her for what appears to be his murder. She is arrested, but before the boat docks, Tony comes to Tanya's cabin and proposes that they open a club like Nick's, with Tanya as "hostess." Tanya, desperate to sever her past, poisons Tony, who falls overboard to his death. When they dock in Mandalay, the captain reports that stowaways saw Tony in the hold and it is presumed he escaped in a small boat. Tanya is freed, she confesses her crime to Gregory, and they pledge to start a new life together.


VIDEOS
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I'll Never Get Dressed...
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Just Where You Pinned Them...
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You Can Laugh At Them...
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ARTICLES
Today her place in film history rates little more than a footnote in the ascendancy of Warner Bros. as a major Hollywood studio but Kay Francis was their first major female star whom they had lured away from Paramount in 1931. During her peak years for the studio between 1932 and 1935, she specialized in melodramas, soap operas and lightweight comedies which accented her elegance and chic fashion sense but also stereotyped her in increasingly inferior films. She was dethroned by Bette Davis as Warners' top star in 1936 and, by 1938, she was labeled "box office poison" in an article by The Hollywood Reporter. Still, there are several gems among the more than sixty five movies that she made (Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise [1932], Jewel Robbery [1932], Wonder Bar [1934]) - and Mandalay (1934) is one of her best dramatic showcases as well as an enormously entertaining, eyebrow-raising Pre-Code wonder. (It was made before the Code was officially enforced but released after the fact.) Tanya (Kay Francis), a Russian refugee living in Rangoon, is romantically involved with Tony (Ricardo Cortez), a gunrunner with ties to underworld connections. When he finds himself in deep debt to Nick (Warner Oland), the owner of the notorious nightclub Jardin d'Orient, he abandons Tanya there with the understanding that Nick will put her to work as the "club hostess" in exchange for his debts. At first despairing, Tanya quickly decides to follow the advice of Madame Lacalles (Rafaela Ott...

NOTES

Variety notes that George Brent was to have played Dr. Burton but asked to be released as he did not want to make the trip to the ten-day Stockton location on the San Joaquin River. His wife, Ruth Chatterton, had previously turned down the lead because she did not want to play another prostitute. News items in Hollywood Reporter note that Donald Woods later was assigned to the lead and Katya Sergova was considered for "Tanya." According to Hollywood Reporter, the script had to be rewritten to explain Lyle Talbot's head bandage, the result of an earlier accident. In 1936, the studio's application for a certificate of approval for re-issue was denied. A letter from Joseph Breen, Director of the Studio Relations office of the AMPPA to Jack L. Warner dated September 3, 1936 lists the films for which certificates had been denied because "The examination of our files would indicate that they contain so much objectionable matter that any attempt to re-edit them so as to bring them within the requirements of the Production Code would be extremely difficult. About Mandalay the letter added, "This picture also has the basic Code violation of presenting the heroine as an immoral woman."

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