Footlight Parade (1933)

Footlight Parade (1933)

In director Lloyd Bacon's and Warner Bros' musical (featuring legendary choreographer Busby Berkeley) - this was the third spectacular backstage musical from Warner Bros in 1933 (after Lloyd Bacon's own 42nd Street (1933) and Mervyn LeRoy's Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)). This briskly-told entry has often been considered as the best and most extravagant of all three.

These three energetic, fast-paced song/dance films all featured performers Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Guy Kibbee, and three chorus girls or 'golddiggers'. They also featured songs written by Al Dubin (lyrics) and Harry Warren (music), and conducted by Leo F. Forbstein. Each movie attempted to outdo the previous extravaganza in exotic, erotic flamboyance.

This un-PC, pre-Code musical comedy, an escapist Depression-Era diversion, was set at the time of the arrival of talkies. The star of director Lloyd Bacon's backstage, behind-the-scenes show-business musical was James Cagney - as excitable, energetic impresario/theatrical producer Chester Kent, in his first on-screen singing-and-dancing musical role.

The fast-paced musical was budgeted at 703,000ドル (estimated), mostly because the three production numbers that comprised the last 30 minutes of the film each cost about 10,000ドル/minute, and each of them lasted at least 12 minutes (the length of a reel of film). The film's box-office revenue was 1ドル.6 million (domestic), and 2ドル.4 million (worldwide), and it was ranked as the # 8 film at the box-office for 1933. Surprisingly, the film received no Academy Awards nominations.

The film's familiar plot was a typical-for-the-time backstage tale about putting on a lavish show - in this case, the creation of live touring stage productions for major motion-picture houses. The eventual premise was that producer Kent was compelled - in only three days - to create three complete, fantastic, live, spectacular and show-stopping miniature musicals (known as "prologues") for movie theatres as an added pre-show featured attraction for their patrons during the early days of talkies. Instead of small-scale stage shows, he was promoting large, traveling stage productions.

First, Chester Kent had to talk two crooked producers Silas "Si" Gould (Guy Kibbee) and Al Frazer (Arthur Hohl), into backing his novel idea. His main objective was to convince the crucial Apollo movie theater chain and its owner Mr. George Apolinaris (Paul Porcasi) to sign on. Assisting Chester were his faithful executive assistant and secretary Nan Prescott (Joan Blondell) (secretly in love with him), singer-manager Scott "Scotty" Blair (Dick Powell), prissy and mousy office girl/dancer Bea Thorn (Ruby Keeler) and frazzled dance coach-director Francis (Frank McHugh) (who complained: "It can't be done"). He also had to contend with a scheming and greedy estranged wife Cynthia (Renee Whitney), sly assistant Harry Thompson (Gordon Westcott) - a traitorous spy leaking his 'prologue' ideas, opposition from his two chiseling backers (who hid the profits), and effete censor advisor Charlie Bowers (Hugh Herbert) appointed by Si Gould's spoiled wife Harriet (Ruth Donnelly).

In the film, Chester sealed off the studio to produce the three prologues in three days. The thin plot was an excuse to show off the elaborate and extravagant choreographed Berkeley production numbers. In fact, there were four musical "prologues" in this film - although the first one, a cat-themed song-and-dance, was very brief: ("Sittin' on a Backyard Fence") and only part of a rehearsal. The three fantastic, tremendous and extravagant musical finales (meticulously choreographed by Busby Berkeley) were performed back-to-back at the conclusion, on the same night in three different theaters (the Jupiter, Mercury, and Diana Theaters). They were created as musical numbers or "prologues" for movie theatre owners to provide for their patrons before film shows:

• "Honeymoon Hotel"
• "By a Waterfall"
• "Shanghai Lil"

• in the film's early expressionistic number, "Sittin' on a Backyard Fence," chorines were dressed in pussy cat-suits, begging for male tom-cats to come and join them - literally: "Come on, come on, We'll do our turtle-dovin', Sittin' on a backyard fence'"; the midget actor-star Billy Barty portrayed a mischievous rodent
• there were many pre-Code jokes and risque situations mixed in; in one instance, at three o'clock in the morning, Nan Prescott (Joan Blondell) confronted her opportunistic, conniving, gold-digging, bitchy roommate Vivian Rich (Claire Dodd); temptress Vivian was attempting to steal away her drunken beau, theatrical producer Chester Kent (James Cagney) - the smart-mouthed Nan quipped as she kicked Vivian out the door:
  • "Now you scram, before I wrap a chair around your neck!...Outside, countess. As long as they have sidewalks, you've got a job!"
• the film's 9-minute naughty and bawdy "Honeymoon Hotel" sequence, the first major dance-musical sequence, featured married (?) bridal couples (all anonymously named Smith, to hide their promiscuous behavior) preparing for the evening, along with two hapless newly-wed honeymooners:
  • Bea Thorn (Ruby Keeler), office-girl and dancer
  • "Scotty" Blair (Dick Powell), a young tenor crooner turned manager
• many other flimsy, lingerie-wearing female brides who had been shacked up for a week (with their grooms and "DO NOT DISTURB" signs) offered advice to nervous newlywed Bea - they knocked on her door and supported her in song:
  • "I've been notified there's a little bride All alone in number two I think we ought to see her through, I will, Me, too. We've been here a week When you're here a week then you're qualified to speak. Let's tell her what it's all about, My dear, will you come out?...Wait a while, you'll want to stay forever At the Honeymoon Hotel"
• unfortunately, the newlyweds had to put up with her lecherous brother 'Little Boy' (midget Billy Barty) who almost shared their wedding night

• the second major number was introduced by Chester - "If this doesn’t get ’em, nothing will" - a 10-minute racy pre-Code "By a Waterfall," featured a dreamy vision of love and marriage sequence, with an elaborate aquacade (of diving and swimming) performed by 100 bathing-suited girls/chorines (clothed to appear naked); it included amazingly intricate dances and artistic patterns in the water while shot kaleidoscopically from overhead
• one segment featured dozens of legs of floating swimmers that were cleverly unzipped and then zipped; then in the climactic finale, the swimmers formed a revolving 70 foot high human wedding cake/fountain formation

• in the third and final exotic "Shanghai Lil" number (providing commentary on Paramount's Shanghai Lily character (Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express (1932) from the year before), Ruby Keeler appeared as the prostitute Lil in a backstreet opium den and brothel on the waterfront of Shanghai
• the mystery of the character of Shanghai Lil was described by a long line of customers at the bar (with a lengthy left-to-right tracking shot) who commented on her:
  • "Oh, she's a fascinatin' heathen, But say! She ain't been through the mill, Since she met that gob, she's acting like a snob, Say, who the heck is Shanghai Lil? That Chinee devil! No, she's on the level, she can't hurt you and me That Oriental dame is detrimental to our industry You said it!..."
• she was sought by a tap-dancing sailor (James Cagney) looking for his long-lost love Lil; he went searching for her in the vice-ridden back-room opium den; when he couldn't find her, the sailor was forced to fight to save Lil's reputation by fighting off a bunch of other sailors; once Shanghai Lil appeared (Ruby Keeler with a jet-black wig and stereotypical Chinese makeup), the two joined together for a fantastic tap-dance duet across a bar counter and on a bar table; the dance duet ended when a bugle call signaled the sailors to march (in structured patterns) back to their ship

• the film's closing shots were of an imperialistic US Navy drill and marching team, the Stars and Stripes flag, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the NRA's Blue Eagle; Lil joined the sailor as he departed on the ship bound for America