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Footlight Parade [VHS]

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James Cagney is of course best known for his sympathetic, even lovable, gangster in such films as Public Enemy and White Heat (well, he is not quite so lovable in the latter). What is less well known is that he shone in a variety of other kinds of roles during his long career, up to and including Shakespeare's Bottom.

One of the genres in which Cagney was most successful was the movie musical. Later in his career, he was even able to combine his talents by playing gangsters in musicals such as Love Me or Leave Me and Never Steal Anything Small. Probably the best of his musicals, though, was 1933's Footlight Parade. As Chester Kent, producer of live musical prologues to films during the early days of the "talkies," he dances and sings, and in typical Cagney fashion also gives the impression of being in at least five places at once. This despite having to contend with a dishonest competitor, a couple of even more dishonest colleagues, a grasping ex-wife, a nervous director ready to have a breakdown at every turn, and constantly increasing demands on his time.

Cagney is more than ably assisted by a superb supporting cast: Joan Blondell as the (of course) hard-boiled secretary who is secretly in love with him, Ruby Keeler as the shy office assistant who blossoms when returning to the stage, Dick Powell as the romantic leading tenor of the prologues, Frank McHugh in a sterling performance as the flamboyant yet thoroughly masculine director, and Claire Dodd as Blondell's scheming sister who sets her sights on Cagney. Such a fine cast assures that the energy level of the film never flags.

However, the real raison d'etre of Footlight Parade are the four big Busby Berkeley musical numbers: "Sittin' on a Backyard Fence" which appears in rehearsal halfway through the film, and the three prologues, "Honeymoon Hotel," "By a Waterfall" and "Shanghai Lil," which paradoxically appear at the end of it. Ruby Keeler, a great dancer, a little less talented as a singer, appears in all four of the numbers, and Dick Powell in the first three. Cagney steps into "Shanghai Lil" at the last second, replacing a frightened and drunken leading man, and so of course we are in for the fistfight that is a feature of almost every film Cagney ever made. The four musical numbers are all delightful, and I would be hard pressed to pick a favorite from among the four; probably whichever one I am watching at the moment.

The overriding quality of Footlight Parade is its irrepressible energy, fueled first and foremost by the young Cagney, with the rest of the cast following in quick order. A fun and, to say the least, very invigorating way to spend a couple of hours.

Many people now consider this the best of the major Warner/Busby Berkeley films (the others: GOLD DIGGERS OF 33, 35 & 37, 42ND STREET, FASHIONS OF 1934, IN CALIENTE, DAMES, WONDER BAR). I have to agree. The non-musical segments are as good as the production numbers. This is an amazing showcase for Joan Blondell and James Cagney, whose rapid fire 30's dialogue is something to behold. The script is still funny, and quite racy as well ("I've met miss Bit....I mean RICH before").

George Feltenstein at Warners has promised a Busby Berkeley boxed set DVD in 2005. Lets hope this film gets some sort of restoration, and that they maybe throw on Berkeley numbers from lesser films (VARSITY SHOW, THE SINGING MARINE) as extras.

FOOTLIGHT PARADE is the last of the great Warner Brothers musical "trilogy" of 1933 along with 42ND STREET and GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933. In my opinion, it is the best of the series, and grossing in over $700,000 (a staggering amount for depression era films), apparently the viewers of 1933 found it to be a real treat as well.

Chester Kent (James Cagney) is a down-and-out-of-luck stage producer when he finds himself out of a job (ironically, via motion pictures). To make matters worse, his wife leaves him and his agents (Guy Kibbee and Arthur Hohl) don't need him anymore. All of this in the first five minutes of the film!

Kent gets a breakthrough idea: putting on one pre-picture prologue may cost a bundle, but if you tour the country with that one prologue, it will pay for itself practically! Soon, he has an entire establishment including his right hand gal Nan (Joan Blondell), stenographer turned tap dancer Bea Thorne (Ruby Keeler), a singing college romeo Scotty (Dick Powell), a hypochondriac director (Frank McHugh) and a mischievous censor (Hugh Herbert). All of this in the next ten minutes of the film!!

After a while, the company starts to really take off, that is until Kent gets a little competition that steals his ideas. Suddenly, a grand chain deal worth tens of thousands arrives, and three shows to be produced in three days. Add on top of that some romantic interest and you've got a real crowd pleaser. Could anyone else but Warner Brothers pull it off? I think not.

The main numbers in this film, all Al Dubin/Harry Warren or Sammy Fain/Irving Kahal, which means quality. The first couple of numbers ("Ah, The Moon is Here" and "Sittin' On a Backyard Fence") are toe-tappers, but fall a little flat. Busby Berkely's genius direction isn't realized until the final three numbers: "Honeymoon Hotel", a romp through a hotel specializing in newlywed sweets, filled with dozens of scantilly clad women, "By A Waterfall", a kaleidoscopic synchronized swimming number complete with a 50,000 gallon-per-minute waterfall (all on a Broadway stage, I might add) and the real show-stopper, "Shanghai Lil", in which Jimmy Cagney tap-dances the pants off of Ruby Keeler.

The pacing as one might assume from this review is extremely fast, which makes multiple viewing of this film enjoyable. Lloyd Bacon was known well as a director that believed in fast pacing, and this leaves lines filled with pre-code gems that can be picked up on later screenings of the film.

Almost every part is cast perfectly, with some of the best selection being that of Dick Powell as the carooning college boy, aiming for Ruby Keeler's affection (and vice-versa), Frank McHugh as a nervous, cigar chewing director, and Hugh Herbert as a jittery brother of a backer/state censor. Paul Porcasi has a funny role as a theater owner with a chronic case of indigestion. Also look for two cameos by Billy Barty as a mouse in the Kitten number and as a child in the Honeymoon Hotel number.

The quality of Warner's VHS video edition is quite top notch. Film elements are quite good, although a little rough near reel changes, and the Vitaphone soundtrack is also clear and clean, except for the occasional edit marks which can be heard when there is little dialogue or background sound. Since it's in black and white, it's a bit clearer than a color film, and there's no problems that you could run into on that level.

I would personally love to see this released as a DVD edition, which it just may, but if you're out to see this, buy this one as soon as you can.

James Cagney stars as a producer of prologues, which are short live musical numbers that precede talking films. He is ably assisted by his secretary, Joan Blondell, who is obviously in love with him without his knowledge. Dick Powell plays one of his performers who falls in love with Ruby Keeler, an office assistant who also blossoms into a performer. Other members of the Warners Stock Company are along for the ride, including Frank McHugh, Guy Kibbee, Ruth Donnelly, Hugh Herbert, and Claire Dodd. Cagney is having problems putting together his prologues, being cheated by his partners, and the women in his life other than Blondell are taking him for a ride too. Cagney is in great form here, dominating (as usual) every scene he is in, including his dance number in the film's final musical sequence. Blondell gives yet another likeable performance, tossing off the one-liners yet giving her character some heart. I usually find Powell a bit irritating, and he holds true to form in this film, while Keeler's acting and dancing seem clunkier than usual. But Powell and Keeler can be easily overlooked by the spectacle of Berkeley's musical numbers, the solid, quick direction of Lloyd Bacon, and by Cagney's star performance. It's a shame that Warner Brothers didn't give Cagney a few more roles like this one that fully show his amazing talent. His fans will definitely want to catch this film.

I wrote a review of "Footlight Parade" a couple of years ago and don't want to replace it. However I recently discovered a trivia fact about the film and decided to toss in this question: What is unusual about the several times the pianist plays the song "Ah, the moon is here" during the audition scene?

Answer: Each time the song is in a different key. When Mary has a go at it, it is in B-flat (as it is when Dick Powell and Frank McHugh demonstrate the piece in their hilarious duet). When the opera singer who gets into her singing mood with perfume ("Forget the smell, honey; sing") gives it a try, it is in C. Finally, when the woman who wins the audition sings it, it is in G. Presumably, the pianist had worked with this troupe for a long time and knew each singer's preferred key...

I completely agree with one friend that told me this was one of Cagney's most underated films although it is fantastic. The musical numbers designed by Busby Berkeley are outstanding and the final number "Shangai Lil" is a pleasure for moviegoers and especially if they are Cagney's fans like myself.... After seeing this movie you can understand why Jimmy Cagney would won an Oscar for Yankee Doodle Dandy nine years later, his role as Chester Kent is an anticipation of his George Cohan role...The performances by the rest of the cast are excelent especially Joan Blondell who shines as Jimmy's Assistant...

I really spend and excelent time watching "Footlight Parade" being this 1933 gem "a must see" for the legion of Cagney's fans....

Not so much a musical as a mating call set to music. But then what else could be expected from three back-to-back production numbers from that carnally-obsessed choreographer Busby Berkeley. "Beside the Waterfall" alone has enough `flowering o's', half-dressed chorines, and suggestive camera angles to make Hugh Hefner blush and send Dr. Freud into terminal overload. Then too, who else but the mad Mr. Berkeley could convert the complicated matter of sex into a mere conjugation of overhead geometry. There's also "Honeymoon Hotel", a celebration of the no-tell motel, with marching phalanxes of hormonally driven couples all named Smith, and led by a demonic cupid looking like an early Billy Barty. The sight of his tiny legs chasing after a fleeing Amazon is enough to drive Harpo Marx to distraction and cause the audience to doubt the laws of physics. While bringing down the curtain is the marching madness of "Shanghai Lil", where Berkeley proves-- in case you ever doubted-- that race, creed, and bad make-up make no difference to a Chinese bordello. It's sort of an early gathering of the UN, where people from all over come together to discuss the world's number one topic. All in all, there's enough sheer pizzaz, flash, and animal energy in these numbers to light up a thousand dark movie houses.

Sure, Warner Bros. tries to cover the orgy with the fig leaf of two cheerful innocents played by a sappy Dick Powell and a virginal Ruby Keeler. But it doesn't work, because everyone else gets in on the fun, including that human buzz-saw Jimmy Cagney and everyone's favorite sassy dame Joan Blondell. Director Lloyd Bacon proves too he knows what to do, giving us an eyeful of Blondell endlessly rolling and unrolling her hosiery, while the writers pepper the conversation with suggestive one-liners. Yeah, it's a great movie-- good enough to help bring down the heavy hand of censorship the following year, and put an end to damp dreams like "Beside a Waterfall". But not even the Watchdogs of Public Morality could stop Berkeley's deliriously suggestive pagentry that would live on at even that most repressed of studios, MGM. Sure, Astaire-Rogers may have been more graceful and a whole lot more chaste, no doubt producing more sheer polish-- still and all, don't let this unabashedly pagan celebration pass you by. As they say around the owl cage, it's a real hoot.

I've watched Footlight Parade several times. Like other Cagney fans, I marvel at his versatility as he goes from gangster films to musicals. I love every minute of this movie, but the icing on the cake is the "Shanghai Lil" sequence. If you've never seen Cagney do anything but gangsters, you must see him as an absolutely adorable, dancing, singing "gob". And, the "Shanghai Lil" music is performed in so many styles thoughout this final sequence that you can't get it out of your head. "I've been lookin' high, I've been lookin' low, lookin' for my Shanghai Lil." Don't miss this one!

When people think of Busby Berkeley movies, The Goldiggers of 1933 and 1935 plus 42nd Street top the list. This picture tends to get overlooked, but I have NEVER seen anything as transcendently wacko as the By A Waterfall number. It helps that this was one of the last precode musicals, but if you think that sex was invented in 1963, you have not seen Berkeley's lizard brain- generated Fugue on a Theme by Sigmund Freud. It's truly impossible to describe, but I fantasized about Leni and Joe catching this picture in a screening room at UFA and deciding that this would have to be the benchmark for next year's picture about the Nuremberg rally.

Other highlights in the picture include Jimmy Cagney blasting his way with explosive energy, Joan Blondell making a case as one of the unfrairly forgotten screen presences of the 1930s and of course the Honeymoon Hotel and Shanghai Lil sequences, These would rate as oustanding in their own rights, but have the misfortune of being in the same picture as Waterfall.

Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler are an interesting case. Keeler is a kind of depression glass artifact of the movies. People loved her for her inadequacies. Powell would have gone down in movie history as a somewhat de-testosteroned romantic tenor until he turned in a Philip Marlowe performance ten years later that surpassed Bogart playing the same character. It's strange, but my memories of the later role shadow and add depth to the earlier operetta work, lending his sappy crooning about gushing liquids and embowerment at the honeymoon hotel a latent menace.

OK, so why not 5 stars? The first hour of the picture is watchable, but suffers from the structural risk that the film took in staging all of the musical numbers in the last half hour. See the first hour once, and you need not see it again. Although the Turner VHS print is quite good, a decent transfer to DVD would be a most excellent thing. But I guarantee that the final sequences will make even the most jaded movie goer spit out their popcorn in astonishment.

I have never seen the entire movie until now. Fun, funny, and at times risque. Three musical numbers used as the climax, all are good with my favorite a toss up between By A Waterfall, and Honeymoon Hotel. This film deserves to be restored and released on DVD. Warner Brothers, are you listening???