Saturday 15 June 2024

Footlight Parade (1933 Lloyd Bacon)

James Cagney and Joan Blondell reteamed again, he as a producer and she his faithful assistant (who's in love with him, of course). Cagney gets to do some moves, and singing. Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler also make out (she looks terribly uncomfortable in watery scenes - must have been freezing).

With Frank McHugh, Guy Kibbee, Ruth Donnelly, Hugh Herbert, Claire Dodd. Thought I recognised Jimmy Conlin, and Busby Berkeley plays the drugstore clerk, Sam McDaniel has a tiny walk on as the hotel porter.

George Barnes shot it.

The musical numbers are all in the last half hour, which unbalances the film, though overall it's fun. Was Berkeley on drugs? (I don't think so, though he was something of a heavy drinker.) It was Warner's third BB musical of 1933, so nimble was the studio in those days. This is the one that definitely influenced the Coens' Hail Caesar!







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