The "Los Angeles Times" called it "a silk-and-satins sex jaunt.. Raft, light on his feet but heavy on his lines, makes an ideal type pictorially for the role." "The New York Times" called it an "episodic story" adding "Raft is a vivid and pictorially interesting type, rather than an actor in the technical sense, and consequently he proves unequal to the full implications of the fame-hungry dancer. The exterior attractiveness which Mr. Raft brings to the rôle gives "Bolero" considerable color, nevertheless, and the film, without coming close to realizing the real possibilities of the story as an overpowering study of megalomania, does manage to be moderately entertaining."