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Footlight Parade (1933) -- L. Bacon
Here is another Busby
Berkeley spectacular from Warner Brothers.
This time, Jimmy Cagney plays the musical theatre impresario who is on
the ropes, struggling to stay in business against competition from the new rage
of "talkies" that has eliminated the audience for musicals. So, he creates "prologues"
(basically song and dance numbers) to run before the film and he rolls these
out across the country using performing "units". Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell are here to sing
and dance and there is the usual bevy of showgirls. Oddly, the Berkeley numbers are saved for the
final 30 minutes and they are pretty great (and somewhat lewd) as usual; all
symmetrical designs formed by arms and legs and shot from above to look like
flowers and even patriotic symbols.
Cagney can dance (as later displayed in Yankee Doodle Dandy) but I still
prefer Gold Diggers of 1933.
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