Whoopee! 1930 - An old fashioned musical but with a lot of fun

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021549/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: Thornton Freeland
Main Cast: Eddie Cantor, Ethel Shutta, Paul Gregory, Eleanor Hunt, Jack Rutherford

Adapted from Owen Davis's stage comedy The Nervous Wreck (itself filmed in 1927), Flo Ziegfeld's musical spectacular Whoopee! was one of the solid hits of the 1928-29 Broadway season, thanks largely to the irrepressible Eddie Cantor. Filmed for a then eye-popping $1.5 million, Whoopee! is an example of the old fashioned star comic musical film. It features the cinematic debut of choreographer Busby Berkeley. While none of the numbers are shot entirely in the now-recognizable Berkeley style, many have touches that foreshadow that style, such as the use of an overhead shot in 'Cowboy' and the use of close-ups on beautiful chorus girls in 'Stetson'. There's an emphasis on the spectacular throughout, which helps to smooth over some of the rough patches in the script. Much of the humor seems tired by modern standards, and the use of blackface in 'My Baby Just Cares for Me' is off-putting, especially as Cantor is so otherwise appealing. He does here what he always does, playing a nervous wreck who happily can't seem to stay out of trouble. Cantor's vulnerability is leavened by his underlying rambunctiousness, and his talent was one of a kind. While Whoopee! is clearly his show, he does get some valuable support from Ethel Shutta, and the score is attractive.
Featured among the Goldwyn Girls are such future stars as Claire Dodd, Virginia Bruce, and 14-year-old Betty Grable, who energetically performs the very first chorus of the very first song in the film. Lensed in eye-pleasing early Technicolor, Whoopee was a success, launching a long and fruitful cinematic collaboration between Eddie Cantor and Sam Goldwyn. It was remade by Goldwyn in 1944 as Up in Arms, a showcase for the producer's 'new Cantor' Danny Kaye. - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/whoopee%21-v54440/

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Babes in arms 1939 - Let's put on a show!

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031066/?ref_=nv_sr_1
IMDB rating: 6,6

Director: Busby Berkeley
Main Cast: Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Charles Winninger, Guy Kibbee

"Babes in Arms is a prime example of the 'let's put on a show' musical popular in the 1930s and 1940s. The nominal plot is little more than a means of connecting the elaborate production numbers; the supporting cast are little more than props for stars Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. Busby Berkeley's direction is able and functional: like the audience, he's just eager to get to the next dance set. MGM had other priorities at the time of Babes' production - most notably Garland's classic The Wizard of Oz, on which the studio lost money, and the expensive, lucrative Gone With the Wind - so the budget for the Berkeley musical was surprisingly low. What Babes in Arms lacks in production grandeur, however, it amply compensates with the captivating star turns from Rooney and Garland." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/babes-in-arms-v3541/

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Gold diggers of 1935 - A visual masterpiece

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026421/?ref_=nv_sr_3
IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: Busby Berkeley
Main Cast: Dick Powell, Adolphe Menjou, Gloria Stuart, Alice Brady, Hugh Herbert, Glenda Farrell

"Gold Diggers of 1935 features outstanding musical numbers and dazzling choreography from director Busby Berkeley, not to mention some amusing moments with future Titanic star Gloria Stuart. The plot, such as it is, takes place at a rich resort hotel where a lowly desk clerk (Dick Powell) falls in love with Stuart's character, the daughter of a rich snob (Alice Brady). As was common in Depression-era escapist movies, the wealthy elite are depicted as elegant but insensitive, and true love wins out for the happy ending. Winifred Shaw's rendition of 'Lullaby of Broadway' gives the film its highlight, though all of the production numbers are strong. Gold Diggers is a primary example of Berkeley's work, both as a choreographer and as a director. Of particular note in the tech credits are Anton Grot's production design and George Barnes's crisp cinematography." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/gold-diggers-of-1935-v20141/

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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

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42nd Street 1933 - The quintessential backstage musical

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024034/
IMDB rating: 7,8

Director: Lloyd Bacon
Main Cast: Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, George Brent, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Una Merkel, Guy Kibbee, Ginger Rogers

"If MGM's 1929 The Broadway Melody invented the musical, Warner Bros.' 42nd Street saved it. The four years between the two movies had seen the genre driven practically into the ground, as the studios, still struggling with synchronized sound and what to do about it, ground out one ill-advised musical after another, few terribly good as music and most even less impressive as movies. It had gotten so bad that by 1932, theater owners were protecting their box office with signs announcing, for any 'suspect' title, 'NOT A MUSICAL!' It was into that environment in 1933 that Warner Bros. released 42nd Street, directed by Lloyd Bacon and choreographed by Busby Berkeley - and it revived and revolutionized the whole musical genre, by taking it to the long-delayed next step. It was during the making of The Broadway Melody that filmmakers discovered that they could separate the shooting of a musical number from the recording of its music. Berkeley and cinematographer Sol Polito took this notion to the next step by removing the camera from the studio floor. Under their direction, shots were done from overhead angles and other locations from which no person could ever actually observe in real life, and the dancers' motions were, in turn, designed to exploit those angles; in effect, they created the true movie musical, as opposed to a musical that happened to be on film. Bacon's direction of the dialogue portions of the story, with both dramatic and comic content, was also very sure, no surprise for a man later responsible for dramas like The Fighting Sullivans and comedies with Red Skelton, which meant that the movie held up even when there was no dancing or singing on the screen; and when there was, the music by Harry Warren and Al Dubin was downright clever; and the acting, though a little broad by modern standards, was of first caliber, also unusual for a musical, ranging from serious dramatic lead Warner Baxter to comic relief from George E. Stone as the mousy, lecherous stage manager and Guy Kibbee's befuddled, lecherous backer, with Bebe Daniels, Ruby Keeler, and Ginger Rogers at their most delectable.
Based on the novel by Bradford Ropes (which was a lot steamier than the movie censors would allow), 42nd Street is highlighted by such grandiose musical setpieces as 'Shuffle Off to Buffalo', 'Young and Healthy', and of course the title song. The audience devoured it, and Warner Bros., Berkeley, and company rose to the occasion of delivering more and better musicals like it for much of the rest of the decade.
Nearly fifty years after its premiere, it was successfully revived as a Broadway musical with Tammy Grimes and Jerry Orbach." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/42nd-street-v258

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Gold diggers of 1933 (1933) - The show of a thousand wonders

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024069/
IMDB rating: 8,2

Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Main Cast: Warren William, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Ginger Rogers

"The second talkie version of the Avery Hopwood's theatrical war-horse The Golddiggers of Broadway, Gold Diggers of 1933 was the second of three back-to-back 1933 Warner Bros. musicals benefiting from the genius of Busby Berkeley. Gold Diggers of 1933 adroitly intertwined a light-hearted yet gritty look at backstage shenanigans involving unemployed showgirls and potential moneymen with choreographer Busby Berkeley's outrageously lavish production numbers, replete with fluid camerawork and overhead compositions. Using the Great Depression rather than ignoring it, Mervyn LeRoy's crisply directed story hinged on survival in hard times, as romance blooms when the pragmatic chorines use their 'assets' to charm backers for a new show. Berkeley's 'We're in the Money', featuring coin-clad chorus girls and Ginger Rogers singing in pig Latin, and the cheekily smutty 'Pettin' in the Park' indicate the movie's dual focus on fiscal troubles and carnality. The downbeat finale, 'Remember My Forgotten Man', keeps the film rooted in 1930s reality, despite the escapism offered by Berkeley's visually innovative set pieces and the sweet Ruby Keeler-Dick Powell love story. Other Berkeley-staged musical highlights include the neon-dominated 'Shadow Waltz', all written by the prolific Harry Warren and Al Dubin. As spectacular as Gold Diggers of 1933 was, it would be topped by the last of Berkeley's 1933 trilogy, Footlight Parade." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/gold-diggers-of-1933-v20140

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