Summary
In the chiaroscuro of pre-Code Manhattan, Rebecca Butler—part Icarus, part chorus-girl Cassandra—ascends from threadbare tenement shadows into the klieg-lit Valhalla of the Winter Garden’s chorus line, her calves sharpened by hunger, her gaze already fixed on the gilded balconies where millionaires bloom like orchids in boxes. She trades the syncopated innocence of hoofing duets with Tom Rushworth—whose tap-shuffle heartbeat is the only authentic currency she knows—for the chromium promise of Carter Willis, a banker whose soul is kept in escrow and whose smile arrives by telegram. Willis first offers her a velvet-lined cage as mistress, then, startled by the ferocity with which she refuses to be wallpaper, upgrades her to the marble mausoleum of matrimony. But the city itself intervenes: Dodo, a platinum-haired chorine whose laugh could strip paint, is found strangled with a silk stocking—an exclamation point where her life used to be—and Rushworth, Becky's discarded but still smoldering match, is clamped in handcuffs. To save him, Becky swears under oath that she spent the murder hours in his narrow cot, her body a comma pressed against the sentence of his. The headlines erupt like magnesium; Willis retreats behind iron gates; Broadway's neon tongue brands her harlot. Yet in the scandal's white glare she sees the arithmetic of her heart: love multiplied by poverty remains richer than wealth minus love. She descends the marquee's ladder of bulbs, barefoot, into Rushworth's arms, the sound of coins spilling behind her like distant thunder.
Synopsis
Weary of being poor, Rebecca Butler takes a job in a Broadway chorus line and determines to marry a millionaire. She refuses dancing partner Tom Rushworth's offer of marriage in hopes of ensnaring millionaire Carter Willis. At first Willis offers to make Becky his mistress but later he capitulates and asks her to be his wife. When Rushworth is arrested for the murder of Dodo, a chorus girl, Becky provides him with an alibi by testifying that she spent the night of the murder with the dancer. The resulting scandal forces her to forfeit Willis' offer of marriage, but she realizes that her heart lies with Rushworth and that love is more important than money.
Review Excerpt
"
The scent of greasepaint and desperation opens Rouge and Riches like a cracked vial of nitro, and it never stops fizzing.
Carey Wonderly’s scenario, lacquered with Hoadley’s street-grit dialogue cards, lands us in 1922 New York where the sidewalks feel like they owe you money. Cinematographer Robert Walker—never given enough credit outside hard-core silent circles—bathes the chorus loft in sodium glow, so every leg line looks like a razor slipped inside a silk envelope. When Becky Butler firs..."
