Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933, duh!)

Warren William sets aside his usual wolf character to play an honest, crusty upper crust type who rolls over and begs for show girl Joan Blondell.

One of the most astonishing things about having a blog is that I'm still finding movies all the time that amaze me. Enter, The Gold Diggers of 1933. Wow. What a picture. It's funny, sexy, the songs as catchy as a virus on an airplane and the choreography is something you really have to see to quite believe. To top it off, the closing number, Remember my Forgotten Man is socially relevant and still genuinely moving 76 years after it was recorded.

The reassuringly predictable plot follows the ups and downs of a group of showgirls who've been put out of work by the Great Depression. Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon, Ruby Keeler and Ginger Rogers get cast in a Ned Spark's musical revue about the Depression"Forgotten Melody" which lacks only a bankroll to get off the ground. Miraculously fresh music, voice talent and a fat wad of cash are be found in a neighboring tenement apartment where "Boston blue blood" is masquerading as a starving composer (Dick Powell). After Powell makes his Broadway debut, the papers leak his identity and his brother (Warrren William) scoots down to Manhattan to cut off his income and try to block his engagement to showgirl, Polly Perkins (Ruby Keeler). He brings along the family lawyer Fanuel "Fanny" Peabody (Guy Kibbee) for moral support. The pair get side-tracked in the man trap that is the Polly's apartment, and after being pelted with lingerie for a few hours, they begin their own daliances with two of the three remaining "gold diggers." Farcical mix-ups, drunken misbehavior and more "fanny" jokes than I can possibly relate in one blog post ensue.

Warren William and Joan Blondell have some fun scenes that are far more about sex than romance. Even when he's playing a nice guy he comes off a bit as a bit of a wolf, though one that Blondell's Carol the "Cheap and Vulgar" showgirl is gaga over. William's comedy is made all the better by his method of playing everything entirely straight. In one scene he rants that he and Fanny have to stay in New York, because he's "this close" to figuring out what makes this Polly Perkins tick.

Powell and Keeler do the bulk of the singing and dancing but whenever Ginger Rogers is on screen, she is so completely head and shoulders above the other performers, that you wonder why director Mervyn LeRoy bother to feature Keeler to such a great degree. Keeler's singing and dancing aren't bad, but she's no Ginger. Sadly, Ginger's big number, "Sing You a Torch Song" got cut and is put in the film as a fairly weak performance by Powell at the Piano.

Now, I have a confession to make. I'd never actually watched a Busby Berkeley musical all the way through before . I had only seen clips of his human kaleidoscope numbers, which is like judging It Happened One Night from the hitchiking scene that always gets shown on TV. To think that until yesterday, I only thought of Busby Berkley in terms of his signature moves. He is so much more, a mad genius whose numbers move like stream of consciousness through one surreal sight gag to the next. Take Pettin in the Park, for example. The action begins with the principal couple and moves out to see a whole range of diverse couples from the very young to the very old, black, white, rich and poor enjoying love in the great outdoors. One couple have a baby in a baby carriage and as the camera zooms in we see that he is actually little person actor Billy Barty who jumps from the perambulator to wreak havoc on the set. It begins to rain on the couples and the women run behind a backlit scrim to change. Midway through Barty pulls the curtain up exposing them. Their new costume is a metallic body suit that acts as chastity belt much to the disappointment of the male dancers in the number. Luckily Barty provides Dick Powell with a can-opener at the end of the song. And that's just one minute in one song. Oh, to be Busby Berkeley and to be able to realize your every fever dream so completely on screen.

Bonus Eye Candy of the Day: Ginger Rogers in a money bikini!

We're in the Money is probably the best-known sequence from the movie. The film opens with this wonderfully ironic comment on the Great Depression. Just as Busby Berkeley's choreography starts to hit his stride with the surreal weirdness, in this case Ginger Rogers singing in pig latin, while the coin that covers her, um, bikini area rotates in time to the music, the Sheriff bursts in and shuts down the show due to bankruptcy.

There is something a little bit "Springtime for Hitler" about the play within the movie, "Forgotten Melody" and its difficult to tell whether Ned Sparks description of the penultimate number, in which he shouts, "The Wailing! The Wailing" is meant to be funny or serious. It's mindboggling to imagine the narrative structure of a play that could support both "Pettin in the Park" and the expressionistic masterpiece, "Remember my Forgotten Man" which features striking vignettes of women in poverty. One image of a woman holding a baby is eerily similar to Dorothea Lange's famous Migrant Mother taken in 1936. Of course, it's no more wonderful than a movie that's been as breathlessly silly as this one has up to this point that can suddenly switch gears and deliver the tone of dignity that "Remember my Forgotten Man" deserves.

Top Hat (1935)

Irving Berlin's overture at the beginning of Top Hat (1935) is a plunging, slightly menacing downward flight of notes punctuated visually with the clack of Gentleman's walking sticks. From this opening the movie creates a wonderful sense of anticipation. The story opens in a London Gentleman's club where a sign tells us that absolute silence is to be observed. As Fred Astaire appears from behind a newspaper and attempts to carry on a conversation through mime with Edward Everett Horton, it seems inevitable that he is going to be violating that sign in some really big way. He does. Just as he's about to exit he lets out a barrage of tap dance that leaves the old boys falling out of their chairs.

That's how I feel after every Fred and Ginger movie I've seen so far. These movies are so good they knock me out of my seat. They move from one spectacular musical set piece to another with a silly comic plot that keeps you pretty much in continuous idiot grin.

Fred and Ginger meet as only Fred and Ginger could. He is tap dancing away in his friend's hotel room and wakes her up. She comes upstairs to give him a piece of her mind and he falls immediately in love. Of course she has the wrong end of the walking stick and thinks that he is Horace Hardwicke (Horton) who is married to her good friend Madge (Helen Broderick). Determined to woo her, he kidnaps her in a handsome cab and stalks her after her riding lesson, which culminates in my favorite dance scene in the movie "Wouldn't it be lovely." This is a beautiful scene that toys with the audience moving from from a laid back swing to a frenetic dazzling tap section

Fred's big solo number is "Top Hat" which is famously choreographed with a stage full of anonymous men in evening dress. Fred blends in and out of crowd and eventually mimes machine gunning them down with his walking stick. I had something really insightful in my head to say about the meaning of this scene in relation to the rise of fascism in Europe, but frankly it just flew out of my head during the sensational "Dancing Cheek to Cheek." This final number takes place on the Venice set which is an impossible fairyland of high bridges over a really long swimming pool. I think that the Venice in Las Vegas is actually based on the Top Hat version rather than the real city. "Dancing Cheek to Cheek" is the point in the movie (and every Fred and Ginger movie has one) where the audience no longer cares about the plot at all because Fred and Ginger have let their love for their dancing completely overshadow everything else. After this the misunderstandings are tidily resolved and the movie comes to a swift and happy conclusion.

Framed in Meet Cute: Rafter Romance

Well it's been more than a month folks. Hope you all had a great Holidaze! Wish I could say I had something terribly productive to show for my hiatus, other than a few extra pounds from all the dedicated eating I've been doing. I've watched a ton of movies and I'm in danger of forgetting them if I don't get busy blogging.

Rafter Romance (1933) starring Ginger Rogers and Norman Foster (Skyscraper Souls) is a mostly watchable pre-code comedy about a couple sharing an attic apartment in Greenwich Village. Before you get too excited by the raciness of the scenario, remember that Mary has the apartment in the evening and Jack has it during the day because he works as a night watchman. What they are supposed to do on the week-ends is never explained. Their over-involved landlord (George Sidney) takes it upon himself to make sure that they never even meet one another in the apartment. This is a great scenario for a screwball comedy and the movie begins very promisingly with the landlord over-hearing a conversation between Jack who is also a struggling artist and his lady "patron." She offers him hundreds for a painting that he considers worthless. His refusal has more to do with what the drunken elderly woman might expect out of him for the money, but at just that moment the landlord is unable to control himself and bursts into the room demanding he take the money. It's a great piece of comic timing. In fact, with such able comedic talent as Sidney, Rogers and Foster, I'm amazed this move isn't funnier. The gags, which mostly revolve around the couple playing nasty tricks on the other, tend to fall flat. I'm not sure why, perhaps they are just all a bit too predictable.

The funniest scene in the movie has Jack and Mary, who've never met at home, meeting in a deli down the street. He falls for her instantly, never realizing she's the "near-sighted spinster" he's been torturing for weeks. She is sitting on a crate outside the deli and her face is neatly framed by a hanging salami. He goes home and renders the scene in his art, which is pretty hilarious. "And there you were, framed in meat," he says by way of a pick up line.

One of the more entertaining aspects of Rafter Romance is Ginger's outrageously edgy wardrobe. She is a girl who loves big sleeves and even bigger plaids, and I'm certain she inspired this outfit. For someone who is late on the rent, she is certainly a decade (or half century) ahead of the times with her wardrobe. And true to form for pre-code films, there is scene where she undresses before the camera. Filmed from behind, she removes her blazer to reveal a completely bare back. She turns around to reveal that her "shirt" is really just a scarf that's been tucked into the front of her skirt and wrapped around her neck. Before the reveal there is a good ten seconds when she appears to be topless before the audience. Ginger Rogers complained in her memoir that she was never comfortable in skimpy outfits onscreen. This may have been the scene she was thinking of because it must have been scandalous back in the day.

As was pretty typical in pre-code films, Rafter Romance deals directly with the effects of the Great Depression. The reason for the cohabitation is that Mary and Jack, despite having jobs, can't keep up with their rent. Their landlord who is kind-hearted, but practical, doesn't want to put them out on the street. At work, Mary must go out on a date with her loathsome boss, (Robert Benchley) and only manages to keep him at arm's length due to the intervention of a nosy cab driver who makes it his business to defend her honor. Jack has to deal with his drunken patroness who continually propositions him and winds up passing out in Mary's bed, an unpleasant situation for her to deal with after a long day at work trying to sell people refrigerators. The movie doesn't judge these two, though as they hustle to avoid outright prostitution and it's just a fact of life for them that they have to make some moral compromises.

Lovely to Look At: Roberta

Ginger Rogers sings the intro to Hard to Handle in Roberta. In this scene, Ginger sports a ridiculous fake Russian accent though she is supposed to be from Indiana. (Irene Dunne who is supposed to be from Russia might as well be from Indiana.)

Though the movie is jam-packed with spectacular gowns, this is my favorite outfit. Ain't she just adorable?

What can you say about a movie so bursting with talent and entertainment that two hours can scarcely contain it? Well, you could just say "Roberta" and anyone whose seen it will know what you mean. Roberta is funny enough to stand as a comedy without singing or dancing and entertaining enough as a musical that it could be half as funny and still work. Throw in gorgeous Art Deco gowns enough for twenty movies and you have the eye candy of the century.

The ogling begins with Randolph Scott as the male object of desire who makes girls go giddy with the sheer bulk of his charm. I've always had a soft spot for Randy, due to his friendship with Cary Grant and his work in movies like My Favorite Wife. Pairing him with Irene Dunne, my favorite Cary co-star, has the feel of a bit of a family reunion of sorts. Scott and Dunne have a fun hick meets chic chick chemistry that is reminiscent of Ralph Bellamy and Dunne in the Awful Truth. I kept half-expecting Cary Grant to burst in, do a pratfall and win the girl. Really, that would be the only way you could improve on this already awesome movie.

Roberta marks the first-ever Rogers and Astaire movie I've ever seen. I loved it. Though, they weren't the leads in this movie, and take second-billing to Dunne and Scott, it is easy to see why they became the immortal legends they did. Their interactions are so easy and fun and their dancing is so seemingly effortless. My favorite number is Hard to Handle, in which Ginger almost seems to melt into Fred as they move around the stage. The band the so-called Wabash Indianians are no slouches either. Two years earlier, Bob Hope and George Murphy had starred in the Broadway version of Roberta. The producers of the film decided to combine their characters into the Huck Haines character played by Fred Astaire. They also removed a couple of numbers and added two discarded Jermome Kern songs "I Won't Dance" and "Lovely to Look At" which became more popular than any songs in the original version. I don't keep good record of such things, but this may be one of the few instances in which a film improved on stage play.

Stagedoor: How acting is just like karate

Pajama Party: Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers are roommates at the "Footlights Club" a theatrical boarding house on Broadway.

Acting apparently is a body-learned skill like Karate if the movie Stage Door (1936) is to be believed. Katharine Hepburn plays Terry Randall, a blue-blood novice actress who arrives at a theatrical boarding house with three enormous trunks full of clothes, a pocket full of cash and some big ambitions. While the rest of the girls at the boarding house are pounding the pavement looking for work, Terry reads Shakespeare and gives lectures on the topic to a reluctant audience of house mates. She goes on no auditions and insults a major producer to his face and yet she lands the lead role in a new play. Her father, hoping to cure her of the acting bug has gone to the trouble and expense of backing a show for the sole reason of giving her the star role at which he's certain she will fail. If this seems a bit extreme and silly as a method of parenting, you can take comfort in that it utterly fails. Terry who shows no talent in rehearsal, suddenly discovers she can act when one of the members of footlights club commits suicide. Like Daniel-sahn in the Karate Kid, Terry has been unwittingly taking lessons from a master, all the while she thought she was just waxing the cars and painting the fence. Or something like that.

Ginger Rogers and Adolphe Menjou are also in this snappy movie, with Rogers providing most of the zingers in her repartee with Hepburn. Rogers plays a struggling actress who gets a job dancing in one of Menjou's clubs. Rogers is always a delight and it's fun to watch her tap dance away from wolfish non-dancing Menjou. The excellent supporting cast includes Lucille Ball in an early role that showcases her comedic talent, though not as much as we might hope. Andrea Leeds who plays the suicidal Kay Hamilton earned an Oscar nod for her work, which is a touch dated and over the top at times, but still manages a few moments that are truly unsettling. Gail Patrick who plays the villainous Bianca in My Favorite Wife is here playing a prototype of that character.

The best thing about Stage Door is that at its heart it is about friendships between women. Unlike The Women, it's not all about men, though there are a few token members of that sex in Stage Door. The way the actresses talk and interact is the real joy of the movie. There is a gritty realism here from the lousiness of the food to the lumpiness of the mattresses and one instantly senses that all the cynical wisecracks and toughness hide genuine vulnerability.