Customer Reviews

Gold Diggers of 1935

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I make no apologies for saying that Busby Berkeley's incredible sequence to "The Lullaby of Broadway" is one of the most beautiful, chilling, and exuberant moments in the history of American cinema. Not only is the number amazing from a visual standpoint, but is a fantastic illustration of urban isolationism, and attitudes of "The Great Depression." Dreamlike and hypnotic, the song easily seduces the moviegoer as its short character study takes flight, then leaves its viewers in a bizare state of discomfort as its story takes an abrupt and disturbing turn. I know it's cliched, but they really don't make 'em quite like this anymore!

The first hour or so of this film sets up the plot. Dick Powell is hired by wealthy but cheap Alice Brady to chaperone... It seems like everyone is out to make or save a buck in this film, often with comedic results. But this film isn't famous for the plot. It's the musical numbers that make up the last third of the film that you will remember. There's one involving a huge number of showgirls playing pianos that revolve and move around the stage exactly like you would expect in a Busby Berkelely musical. The second number is for the famous song "Lullaby of Broadway", which Berkeley presents with great drama, pushing back all the boundaries. As a rule, I don't much like musicals, but the sheer visual imagination of these numbers kept my attention. There's nothing else like them. As for the actors, they do what they did so well in so many of the Warner Brothers' musicals and comedies of the Thirties. Forget the ridiculous plot and concentrate on the spectacle and professionalism of all involved.

Okay, the story is a cliche from start to finish and the acting is "thirties" overkill. That's not what any movie buff is interested in. The only reason this film is remembered, and it's a doozy of a reason, is the 13-plus minutes of "Lullaby of Broadway". This "film-within-a-film", as it were, is a hypnotic, visually billiant, and shockingly original musical number like none that has ever appeared on the screen. Its story of the life and death of a New York goodtime gal is thrillingly, cleverly rendered and ultimately achieves the impact of both moving and haunting the viewer. The most awesome and eerie part of the spectacle is the synchronized dancing of dozens of chorines and chorus boys, to the manacing strains of "Lullaby...". The effect is a curious mix of excitement and dread, just right for what's coming ahead. The number never fails to achieve maximum impact, and it's so unusual that it is worth the price of admission and deserves its lofty status. Listen to the lullaby...again and again.

You really need to warm up to GOLD DIGGERS OF 1935. It is essentially a B-movie comedy that was somehow blessed with the best production number of any Hollywood musical--but that's waaaay at the end. If you resist the temptation to fast-foward to the Busby Berekeley numbers, and surrender to the general nuttiness, you'll find the movie is actually pretty funny. Alice Brady, Adolphe Menjou and the fabulous Glenda Farrell are excellent, and even Dick Powell isn't so bad here. Gloria Stuart (of TITANIC fame) has a memorable line:

Hugh Herbert: "Put her to bed with a hot water bottle."

Stuart: "That'll be more fun than I've had in ages."

Also, listen to the orchestrations during the musical numbers. They are first-class arrangements. I cannot even listen to any other version of "Lullaby of Broadway" except the one Wini Shaw sings here--it is the definitive rendition.

BRING ON THE DVD!

After having directed the musical numbers for several of their films -- 42ND STREET, FOOTLIGHT PARADE, and GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 ---, Warner Bros. finally let Busby Berkeley be the sole director for GOLD DIGGERS OF 1935, which as usual only features three musical numbers (with two of the big numbers stockpiled at the very end of the film). The plot concerns a stingy millionairess (Alice Brady) losing control of her two children at an expensive lake resort, and the characters are the two-dimensional types -- the easily-horrified dowager, the excitable Russian impresario, the stuffy collector of curios, etc. -- that might have been lifted from restoration comedy. Berkeley has such a heavy hand with his actors, however, that the acting seems more akin here to Kabuki. Brady even sustains a bizarrely florid hand gesture to indicate when she is thinking (you would never guess that in a year she would be honored with a Best Supporting Oscar for her sensitive work in IN OLD CHICAGO). The verbal repartee isn't very scintillating either. Much of it has to do with the characters figuring out various numerical sums (interest on annual income, percentages for financing a Broadway show) that become so overwhelming and repetitive they can have your head spinning before too long.

Fortunately Berkeley is infinitely more skilled as a director with motion and music than he is with spoken comedy. Indeed, his great skill is always negotiating complex movement through a myriad variations on a common theme, which may explain the film's obsession with numbers. The beginning number is not really a dance at all, but a tricky and breathtaking montage of the hotel's workers preparing for the summer guests done like a big musical number (all to the strains of the film's first big number, "I'm Going Shopping with You"). There is also one of his hypnotically trippy big show-with-a-show numbers featuring dozens of chorus girls (56 to be precise) playing with common physical objects, like the violin for "The Shadow Waltz" in GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933: here it is pianos, and we see all 56 of them (one for each girl) form kaledioscopic patterns in the number "The Words Are in My Heart." The highlight of the film is its final number, which is considered by many to be Berkeley's masterpiece, a surrealistic narrative set to the tune of "The Lullaby of Broadway," which was specially composed for the film. It's often been said that this number can stand on its own as a brilliant modernist short, and thought he narrative clearly seems to be an allegory, scholars have debated for years what it seeks to allegorize (decadence? fascism? modernism?). Before the narrative itself ensues, the entire song is sung all the way through by Wini Shaw, whose spotlighted face is shot from a great distance against a sea of blackness, gradually growing larger and larger before we dissolve to the narrative: this first section is accomplished through what must be one of the simplest but most stunning shots in the history of film.

It's a very good film and muc more. Apart from enclosing one of the best Busbby Berkeley's typical corus line scenes, this film is a well directed and well played production with lots of sparks to it. As for the choreography - it is impossible to describe it here -- you have to see it for yourself. It is a classic, no matter how you put it.

I loved the dancing, especially the full Lullaby Of Broadway routine.I hope it is released on DVD with commentary from Gloria Stewart.

Another wonderful Busby Berkley film. He becomes the de facto director on this film and integrates dance throughout the film. The dance numbers are even more spectacular. The number Lullaby of Broadway is so wonderful! Gloria Stuart stars in this film. She died this week at age 100.

This is the one to own if you must own only one.
Of Busby Berkeley, that is.
It's a pleasant change of pace from the "putting on a show" plot that predominates "Dames," "Golddiggers of 1933," "Footlight Parade," and "42nd Street." (All five-star, by the way.) Yes, there is a show, of course, but that's not the main plot point.
Gloria Stuart adds a different dimension from Ruby Keeler. (Though she doesn't dance. :-))
Alice Brady and Adolph Menjou chew the scenery splendidly.
But "Lullaby of Broadway" is the best of all Berkeley production numbers. Powerful. Self-contained. Expertly realized. Beautiful. It blows me away.

This one was made when the Golden Age of Movies existed. One of the major highlights of the movie comes at the finale. It is dark and there is a spotlight showing on Winnie Shaw's face. Very slowly the camera moves closer and closer to her and when she stops singing her head revolves in a circle and then is seen a large group of dancers, and CAN THEY DANCE!! Busby Berkeley did wonders with movie musicals and this is one of them.