Footlight Parade
Screening: 18 July, 6:30pm
USA
1933
Director: Lloyd Bacon
Screenplay: Manuel Seff, James Seymour
Cinematography: George Barnes
Music: Sammy Fain, Irving Kahal, Harry Warren Chester
Kent: James Cagney
Nan Prescott: Joan Blondell
Bea Thorn: Ruby Keller
Scotty Blair: Dick Powell
Francis: Frank McHugh
104 mins;
B&W;
16mm (4:3)
G cert
Following its success with the blockbuster backstage musicals 42nd Street
and Gold Diggers of 1933, Warner Bros. launched this lavish production, with
Cagney marvellous in the lead. He plays Chester Kent, a theatrical producer who finds
himself unemployed after the advent of the Depression and talking pictures. The dogged
Kent, however, sells his backers (Kibbee and Hohl) on the idea of doing "prologues,"
short but stunning stage musical numbers designed to precede the showing of feature
films. Two-thirds of the movie deals with Chester's behind-the-scenes efforts to put
together the prologues; the final third is devoted to the prologues themselves and to
a suitable wrap-up.
Seemingly schizophrenic in form, with a gritty, backstage saga yielding to three
flights of Busby Berkeley fantasy, Footlight Parade is actually an amazing cultural
index of the Depression. All the wisecracking, all the struggle, all the buildup find
a remarkable payoff when the film shifts gears into la-la land. The "Honeymoon Hotel"
number is standard risqué fare, but "By a Waterfall," with Berkeley doing a "wet run"
for his later Esther Williams' spectaculars, is an astounding surrealistic kaleidoscope.
"Shanghai Lil," meanwhile, adds a Warner Bros. toughness to Paramount's Shanghai Lily
(Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express) of the year
before.
Cagney is in great acting, comic and dancing form throughout and Blondell, as Kent's
devoted secretary, proves that she has few peers at wisecracking or conveying low-key
warmth. A great supporting cast and Bacon's well-judged direction help make Footlight
Parade one of the greatest of the Berkeley extravaganzas.
TV Guide
The third of Warners' major backstage musicals to appear in 1933, unlike 42nd Street
and Gold Diggers of 1933 in that it deals not so much with putting on a Broadway show
as with combating the threat of talking pictures; unlike them, too, in that it pins
its atmospheric faith less on the Depression than on Roosevelt optimism as personified
by Cagney's irrepressibly bouncy choreographer. It ends with a string of three grandiose
numbers by Busby Berkeley, that kitschy darling of current fashion, the third of which
is given a terrific boost by Cagney and by a camera raptly tracking through smoky
Chinese bars, nightclubs and opium dens. But by far the best part of the film is
its first hour, fast, furious and funny as Cagney sets out to convince his nervous
backers that his idea for live prologues to accompany talkies can be made to work.
Tom Milne, Time Out Film Guide
Internet Movie Database listing
Preceded by:
Sing Beast Sing
Canada
1980
Director: Marv Newland
9 mins, 16mm
Sing Beast Sing is a brilliant, bizarre International Rocketship classic.
The Toledo Mung Beast sings the blues.
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