Puttin' On The Ritz

Harry Richman was a huge nightclub star back in the 1920s, and also owned a club. His rough face never did translate to the screen and he made just a few films, although he continued delighting audiences with his songs and stories until well into his sixties. Richman, born Harold Reichman, wrote a fine autobiography entitled A Hell of a Life, which would have made a better movie than this. In his talkies debut, Richman plays a poor performer who makes it big, forgets about all the little people, takes up with the hoity-toity types of cafe society, drinks too much, downs some tainted bathtub gin, goes blind, and finally winds up with the woman he began with, ...