Footlight parade 1933 - A bravura exercise in song and dance

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024028/
IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: Lloyd Bacon
Main Cast: James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell

"The last - and to some aficionados, the best - of choreographer Busby Berkeley's three Warner Bros. efforts of 1933, Footlight Parade stars James Cagney as a Broadway musical comedy producer. As with many films of this type, the story is incidental, though the non-musical scenes benefit from a fine performance from James Cagney as a Broadway producer displaced by the film industry's transition to sound. In the early sound era, Warner Bros. was second only to MGM in opulent production values, and Footlight Parade outshines most films of its type from that era. Joan Blondell and Ruby Keeler are tops among the supporting cast, though there are no weak spots. Director Lloyd Bacon had a reputation for an efficient indifference to stylistic filmmaking. Here he has Berkeley and Cagney to create the style for him. he last half-hour of Footlight Parade is a nonstop display of Busby Berkeley at his most spectacular: the three big production numbers, all written by Harry Warren and Al Dubin, are 'By a Waterfall', 'Honeymoon Hotel', and 'Shanghai Lil', the latter featuring some delicious pre-code scatology, and a tap-dance duet by Cagney and Keeler. The result is what many critics consider one of the best musicals of the 1930s." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/footlight-parade-v18113

DVD links: