Tweet A question on the Albertina Rasch dancers

These ladies are a particular favourite of mine and I try to see as much of their work as I can. There's a wonderful Technicolor piece in Lord Byron of Broadway, 1929, a Chinese ballet to the song Blue Daughter of Heaven. Here's what confuses me. In several places on the net, including the Wikipedia article on Albertina Rasch, this Chinese ballet is said to be in Children of Pleasure, 1930, a film I haven't seen. Is it re-used there?

These ladies are a particular favourite of mine and I try to see as much of their work as I can. There's a wonderful Technicolor piece in Lord Byron of Broadway, 1929, a Chinese ballet to the song Blue Daughter of Heaven. Here's what confuses me. In several places on the net, including the Wikipedia article on Albertina Rasch, this Chinese ballet is said to be in Children of Pleasure, 1930, a film I haven't seen. Is it re-used there?

I don't remember Rasch or her dancers in this film at all. There are chorus girls (Ann Dvorak among them) in a couple of numbers, especially with May Boley.

Wiki appears to be wrong about this-Albertina Rasch and/or her dancers aren't credited for "Children of Pleasure" anywhere I checked. Sammy Lee is credited "dances staged by" for "Children of Pleasure" per AFI catalog. The short "Roast Beef and Movies" reuses the song "Dust" from "Children of Paradise" and the Chinese ballet from "Lord Byron" which is probably where the confusion started.

YT has most of CHILDREN OF PLEASURE*, bar the titles if you key in 'Lawrence Gray, 1930'. The Technicolor finale is missing, but part of this can be watched if you key in 'Dust / The Hades Ballet' from ROAST BEEF AND MOVIES. 'The Hades Ballet' is a Technicolor segment of THE MARCH OF TIME (1930, with the Rasch Dancers), which may explain some of the confusion.

*I have the film downloaded including the Technicolor, but lacking the opening credits, if you care to send me a memory stick....

I've been an admirer of these Technicolor dance sequences too--very fortunate we have them.

She was Dimitri Tiomkin's wife. He was musical director for many of her screen dance sequences.

dimitritiomkin.com lists the various ballets with his music-http://www.dimitritiomkin.com/filmography/
and it references this site http://www.dimitritiomkin.com/405/august-2010-devil%e2%80%99s-cabaret-and-crazy-house-released-on-dvd-2/ for further details on where the Devil ballet came from.

The Hades Ballet seems to only have survived in CHILDREN OF PLEASURE in black and white, but it's still in colour in ROAST BEEF AND MOVIES. Interestingly, the two films use alternate camera angles.