Applause (1929)

Fearing for both her waning career and for the reputation of her young daughter April, good-hearted Kitty Darling (Helen Morgan), aging dime-store doyen of New York's gritty burlesque nether world, sends April away to a convent school * of the hard knocks that showbiz life. When, years later, Kitty is reunited with the grown April (Joan Peers), motherhood and career clash in the fading limelight. Loyal to a mother she's never known and both repulsed and fascinated by a beckoning world of sleaze and sawdust, April fends off Kitty's predatory lover while shyly fanning the fires of first love.