If you’re a true film buff, there are at least three reasons you must not miss this classic film.

First, it’s one of the first “all-talking pictures,” and if the art is often primitive by today’s standards, it’s never less than fascinating.

Second, it’s got the incomparable Helen Morgan in the leading role—she of the “tear-stained voice” who had become an overnight star two years earlier as Julie in Broadway’s Show Boat, introducing “Bill” and “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man.”

And third, it was the first movie directed by Rouben Mamoulian, a trailblazer who tells a story with bracing imagination. If this film is flawed—and it is—within three years Mamoulian was ready to present us with a masterpiece, Love Me Tonight.

As for that story, get set for a downer: a melodrama (some would say it’s not a musical; I disagree) about an aging Broadway burlesque queen hooked up with a no-good comedian and fighting a losing battle with alcohol. But Morgan and Mamoulian together make this piece compelling cinema, and the chance to watch Morgan sing Gorney & Harburg’s “What Wouldn’t I Do for That Man?” is an object lesson in American popular singing.