The Flame Song

Flame Song, The (1934)

** (out of 4)

MGM two-reeler about a prince (J. Harold Murray) who is thrown out of his country so he re-enters under the the disguise of a chauffeur so that he can overthrow his evil cousin (Alexander Gray) who is now running a corrupt office. It's well-known that MGM was ran like a factory as the studio just pumped one film out after another. Features and shorts were being pumped out by the studio and while a lot of them are now legendary classics you still have plenty that seem like no real effort was put into them and THE FLAME SONG is one. There's not really anything horribly wrong with this picture but it just seems so by-the-numbers that you can't help but feel as if no one behind the scenes were putting too much into it or perhaps they were just wanting to go on their vacation and rushed through everything. Murray isn't too bad in his part but the same can't be said for Bernice Claire who plays the love interest he meets along the way. Her "acting" wasn't that bad but when it came time for her to sing I was wanting to hit the mute button. Her singing voice might have been dubbed but whoever was doing the singing should have never gotten out of bed that morning. This here is certainly just for those who have to see every short the studio released.