BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Seraherrera The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

BlackJack_B Wonder Bar is one of the most notorious films ever released. One of the last Pre-Code films, Wonder Bar is mostly tame by today's standards. The story of a night at Al Wonder's (Al Jolson) Paris nightclub (named after the film) is full of dark humor, crazy cougars, love triangles and crimes of passion. Sadly, it's quite forgettable and these parts of the movie aren't really why anybody would watch Wonder Bar today.The two reasons to view Wonder Bar is first to see Al Jolson sing and he puts on a terrific show. My favorite part is when he talks to the Russian Count and he goes back to his roots (Jolson was born in present- day Lithuania) and develops a Russian accent. Yes, he's playing himself but that's good enough for everybody.The second are the two Busby Berkeley numbers. Don't Say Goodnight is an amazing showcase of his choreography skills with tons of blondes and mesmerizing visuals.Going' To Heaven On A Mule over the years has aged worse and worse. Every time I think of all those kids in blackface I cringe. I find it hard to believe the producers would think Going' To Heaven On A Mule would be listed among the greatest movie musical numbers ever. The idea of hundreds of whites dancing in blackface with Jolson still disturbs me. Maybe Hays was right in this case that having a Code would at least prevent this kind of overt racist humor for a period of time. You would figure back in 1934 Hollywood was liberal enough to discard the watermelon stereotype but apparently not.Wonder Bar is nothing special outside of Jolson and the two big Berkeley numbers. It's definitely a must-watch for serious cinephiles but that's about it.

JLRMovieReviews The hot spot in Paris is the Wonder Bar. For entertainment, dancing, good food and what tickles your fancy, this is the place. "Wonder Bar" is a very provocative and titillating little film with a very good and talented cast. Though some may say she's wasted in this film, considering she's been in more melodramatic films where's suffering and loving and decked out in lavish gowns, Kay Francis is the female lead. She has been unfaithful to her husband Henry Kolker with a dance instructor and entertainer, played by Ricardo Cortez. When detectives have confronted her husband about the affair, she doesn't make that day's rendezvous and hightails it to the Wonder Bar where Ricardo will be later. It seems she gave him a necklace she needs back for insurance purposes and to keep the proof of her infidelity from her husband. The Wonder Bar is owned by Al Jolson, who also sings for the guests. He of course delivers with usual pizazz. But the main attraction is Ricardo and his partner Dolores Del Rio, who of course loves him. But Dick Powell loves her, too. Added to the mix are patrons of the restaurant, Guy Kibbee and wife Louise Fazenda and friend Hugh Herbert and wife Ruth Ronnelly, who came for the eats, but did they? Right away, Guy and Hugh are flirting with pretty young things and even a pretty boy is touching and flirting with Louise Fazenda. She in turn says her room number very loudly. Shocking!? A guy asks to cut in on the dance floor, and he proceeds to dance with the man. The Kay/Ricardo/Dolores triangle comes to a head very dramatically with a memorable dance number with a whip. A whip! For a minor little film, this was very entertaining and had just enough bizarre naughtiness to differentiate itself from other pre-code films. The only criticism is the black musical number which goes on too long and does seem to be a bit over-the-top and hard to take. Getting back to the action, the married men Hugh and Guy tells the p.y.t.s they'll see them later after they ditch the wives, and Louise has a rendezvous of her own. What happens next? We'll never know, because this is about the Wonder Bar, where things only get started.

Spondonman I taped this off TV in 1987 - I very much doubt it'll be ever be on again. If you can realise that all musicals are necessarily bizarre, especially early '30's Warners, Wonder Bar takes the first prize. Everyone in it is dislikeable or at least seriously flawed human beings, whether at the WB as sexual predators or just desperate for sex, apart from the jovial suicidee (unless he too was after the ultimate kick?!)*** Hugh Herbert's comedy quartet quickly palls; Kay Francis although still divine to look at got away with free "dancing lessons" from Ricardo Cortez; after being even more like Eddie Cantor than usual Al Jolson's morality in covering up murder with an assisted suicide is dubious; Busby Berkeley's pointlessly uglified female sex object troupe were busy in a few lovely routines, the amazing waltzing in the mirror scenes still hold up well; Dolores Del Rio had an intensely public emotional climax, but went off with the ever dependable Dick Powell without a care in the world. ***No matter how different this can be judged from other Hollywood product from the time, it's the "Missouri Mule" 14 minute Heavenly dream sequence to Dubin & Warren's music that will overshadow (ahem) the rest of the film. Whatever the rights and wrongs of it (and it was right at the time obviously) it can't be long before it's excised from any future video release/TV showing. First time I saw it I wondered just how crass, inane and un-entertaining this section was and who on Earth was it meant to originally appeal to?But age tempers judgement as a rule - now I think if anyone (whether black or white) is really offended by a series of moving black and white pictures from 1934 of idiotic white people getting paid to cavort around blacked up representing then stereotypical Negroes - then I think they need their heads examining. If this is anathema how could Blazing Saddles get away with much worse as "comedy", and which to my mind is spreading a negative racial message further than WB can ever do now - just stop and think why so many black people like it.So, a good movie, depressingly different and worth a watch to the liberated.

clydach Jolson's Al Wonder is a cross between Rufus T. Firefly and an early blueprint for Bogart's Rick in CASABLANCA (he owns a club, he fixes everybody's problems, he's hopelessly in love with a woman (del Rio) who's attached to somebody else, and he's an American living in a foreign city -- Paris, in this case).Ricardo Cortez and Dolores del Rio display mannerisms typical of actors still in transition from the silent era. They both bring some magnetism to the screen, as do Kay Francis and Dick Powell. The comedy thread, featuring Guy Kibbee, Ruth Donnelly, Hugh Herbert and Louise Fazenda as two American couples determined to take advantage of the sexual exoticism of Paris, gets a little thin.It's a well made film, although clearly dated, and with some interesting moral ambiguity. Its limits as art and as entertainment are transcended during two sublime Busby Berkeley sequences: the first a typically dazzling choreographic gem emerging from a Cortez/del Rio dance routine; and the second, equally impressive, but bizarre, following Jolson in blackface going up to Heaven on a mule, during which Jolson seems to want to add Cab Calloway to his character's identikit.It's to Lloyd Bacon's (and the cast's) credit that the contrivances of the plot don't dull the film's impact too much, but it is only when BB's magic unfolds that WONDER BAR becomes exceptionally good.