Footlight Parade (1933)
Footlight Parade (1933)
This marvelous cinematic wonder was directed by Lloyd Bacon and stars James Cagney along with other veterans from Warner Bros. earlier Busby Berkeley musical extravaganzas that same year (42nd Street & Gold Diggers of 1933) like Joan Blondell Ruby Keeler Dick Powell and Guy Kibbee. Manuel Seff & James Seymour’s script includes lots of great dialogue which is delivered so rapidly (& the sound quality is so poor) at times that one needs to hit the pause button occasionally to hear it all. This essential show business behind-the-scenes drama including romance was added to the National Film Registry in 1992. Frank McHugh Ruth Donnelly Hugh Herbert Claire Dodd and Arthur Hohl also appear.
Cagney plays Chester Kent the creative talent behind Gould (Kibbee) & Frazer (Hohl) who believe their stage musical comedy business has been put out of business by the advent of sound in motion pictures. At first Kent says "it’s a fad" then he has an inspiration – he and his "equal" partners become the producers of prologues the short thematic stage productions that movie houses run before their feature presentations. Blondell plays Nan Prescott Kent’s more than capable secretary with a long suffering love for her oblivious boss. Unfortunately for Kent while he works like a dog coming up with ideas for theaters coast-to-coast his partners are screwing him out of the profits. Frank McHugh plays Kent’s tireless dance director Francis. Plus bullied by his wife Harriet (Donnelly) Gould hires a lot of his relatives like his nephew Charlie Bowers (Herbert) who censors Kent’s prologues and Scotty Blair (Powell) who actually does exhibit some singing & performing ability. However because of her disdain for Gould’s nepotism bespeckled secretary Bea Thorn (Keeler) will have nothing to do with Scotty; that is until she "blossoms" into a dancing sensation of her own. Claire Dodd plays Vivian Rich a high class girl & Nan’s (former friend now) rival for Kent’s attention & affections. Gordon Westcott plays Kent’s worthless assistant Harry Thompson who steals his boss’s ideas for rival prologue producer Gladstone even after he’s fired through his chorus girlfriend Gracie (Barbara Rogers). Renee Whitney plays Kent’s "ex-wife" Cynthia who shows up at just the wrong (or right) time. Herman Bing plays Fralick the music director. Hobart Cavanaugh appears (uncredited) early in the film as a rejected "title thinker upper".
Other than a brief cat number featuring Keeler (and Billy Taft & Billy Barty uncredited) "Sittin’ on a Backyard Fence" the film’s visual payoff is in its final third when three of Berkeley’s biggest numbers are staged for a potential buyer George Apolinaris (Paul Porcasi) owner of 40 theaters: "Honeymoon Hotel" (in which Jimmy Conlin appears uncredited) "By a Waterfall" (has to be seen to be believed) and "Shanghai Lil" (which includes Cagney’s unique style of hoofing long before his Oscar winning performance in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)) … as if any of these huge productions could have been prologues. Dorothy Lamour & Ann Sothern are among those who appear as uncredited chorus girls.
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