Queen Of The Nightclubs

Little remembered today, this tale of speakeasies and murder is significant for two reasons. First, it introduced George Raft to films, and, second, it immortalized one of the great characters of the whole prohibition era, Texas Guinan, here playing a thinly disguised but heavily fictionalized version of herself. Guinan was born in Texas, but as a young woman she drifted first to Chicago, then to New York as a dancer, actress, and occasional rodeo bronc rider. After WW I she began appearing in two-reel westerns, eventually making over 300 silent shorts. By the middle of the 1920s, she was the hostess at New York's swankiest nightspot, greeting each customer with a ...