Talk:Applause (1929 film)

Plot Summary
This appears to be missing something. In the print I've just seen (from the UCLA archive), in the scene following the marching band with which the film opens, Kitty is seen performing in a seedy, provincial theatre, with her Broadway days clearly behind her. Backstage, she is given a telegram stating that someone (can't remember who - Hitch?)'s appeal for clemency has been rejected, and that he is to be executed. She collapses in her dressing room upon reading this news, and a doctor is called from the audience. We then see her PoV (it is implied that she is semi-conscious) looking up at a group of chorus girls from her couch, before the focus is pulled to a blur, there is a fade to black and then a fade in to a much younger Kitty giving April, then aged 4, a dancing lesson. The implication seems to be that the main narrative is now being told in flashback.

The movie then continues and ends exactly as described in the plot summary in the main article here, with no murder to explain why anyone is about to be executed. Was the version I saw the result of some botched re-editing caused by censorship (Catholic objections to the portrayal of suicide, perhaps)? I don't think this can be a complete version, because the opening theatre scene makes no sense. LDGE (talk) 07:50, 19 October 2013 (UTC)