Irène Bordoni Lavish Pre-Code Musical Paris 1929 Original 11x14 Color Lobby Card

Description

ITEM: This is a vintage and original Warner Bros. lobby card advertising the 1929 pre-Code musical comedy film, "Paris." A lavish Scene Card, this shows one of the opulent and extravagant musical numbers of the film, with Irène Bordoni posed front-and-center of the line up of fantastically costumed chorus girls. No film elements of "Paris: are known to exist, although the complete soundtrack survives on Vitaphone disks.
Small posters on card stock (usually 11" x 14" in a horizontal format), lobby cards were generally produced in sets of eight, intended for display in a theatre's foyer or lobby. A lobby set typically consists of one Title Card (a lobby card of special design usually depicting all key stars, listing credits, and intended to represent the entire film rather than a single scene) and seven Scene Cards (each depicting a scene from the movie). Lobby cards are no longer used in theatres today.
Lobby card measures 14" x 11".
Guaranteed to be 100% vintage and original from Grapefruit Moon Gallery.
More about Irene Bordoni:
Corsican Irène Bordoni was one of several Broadway stars who failed to translate their success to the screen. Born to Italian parents, she was an assured child actress in her native country before emigrating to the United States. There, she established herself on the Great White Way in musical revues and adaptations of spicy French farces. Beginning in 1913, she notched up a string of hits and accumulated fame and fortune over the next sixteen years. At this time, she was married to the composer and theatrical impresario E. Ray Goetz who promoted her as a successor to the late Anna Held. Often described as 'volatile', Irène made the most of her oo-la-la French appeal, her accent, flamboyant costumes, brunette bangs, pursed lips and rolling eyes becoming her trademark. In 1929, Irène arrived arrived in tinseltown 'quietly' with a carload of trunks and an entourage which included a chauffeur, a secretary, a chef and two maids. She established herself in Beverly Hills while maintaining a lavish home off Park Avenue in New York (her other real estate included a villa on the French Riviera and an apartment in Paris). Her movie debut was a First National picture co-produced by her husband, fittingly entitled Paris (1929). Based a Cole Porter musical, it gave Irène the chance to recreate her Broadway success opposite English star Jack Buchanan. The rather moderate response at the box office was likely because the original Cole Porter score had been unaccountably dropped (incidentally, Porter thought so highly of Irène that he wrote the line "You're the eyes of Irene Bordoni" in his lyrics for "You're the Top"). In the same year, Irène appeared in an all-star revue,Show of Shows (1929), but this did not ignite her film career either. Irène returned to Broadway but resurfaced a few more times on the silver screen, notably warbling the title number in the animated Dave Fleischer short Just a Gigolo (1932) and as Madame Bordelaise (according to New York Times critic Bosley Crowther, she wore "the tag most refinedly") in the supporting cast of Louisiana Purchase (1941), again reprising her stage role. When not appearing on stage, La Bordoni maintained a high profile in America's court rooms through a series of well publicised litigations.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: I.S.Mowis