Prologue

Clever, gritty, witty, fast-paced, sexy, extravagant, sleazy, erotic, heartfelt and corny, Footlight Parade is a first-class entertainment, what the movies are all about.

The realistic, satirical treatment gives a fresh edge to the material and its pace and line delivery are breathtaking. To think that they only started making feature talking pictures 7 years before this! The brilliance of the dialogue cannot be matched anywhere today, especially considering that "realism" has taken over and engulfed contemporary cinema.

This film was made at a time when the Hayes code restricting content was being ignored and the result is a fresh, self-referential, critical and living cinema that spoke directly to contemporary audiences suffering through the depression and the general angst of the age. I'd recommend watching any film from this period, that is 1930-1935, for a vision of what popular cinema can potentially be.

This is a pre-Code Warner Bros. Busby Berkeley musical starring...James Cagney!

Cagney develops live musical prologues to be shown on stage at movie houses before the start of a film. (If you've seen the "Let's Go To The Movies" number in ANNIE you get the idea.) It's one catastrophe after another as Cagney tries to keep things running smoothly while staying a step ahead of the competition.

Joan Blondell is great as Cagney's secretary, who loves him more than he realizes. The solid cast also includes Busby Berkeley regulars Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler as a young new tenor and a secretary-turned- leading lady, respectively, with Frank McHugh as the perpetually worried dance instructor and Hugh Herbert as the morality adviser/censor. Lloyd Bacon directs the showbiz tale, with spectacular choreography by the inimitable Busby Berkeley.

I've seen this film's contemporaries (42ND STREET and GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933) and usually feel lukewarm toward these early musicals, but I found myself surprisingly receptive to FOOTLIGHT PARADE. I really liked Blondell's performance, with the romantic tension and snappy wit, and I could tolerate Keeler in her role. McHugh adds whiny comic relief and the script has some racy pre-Code touches. The film also benefits from James Cagney's screen presence. Cagney, best known for his gangster roles, demonstrates some dance steps in this rare musical appearance.

Berkeley choreographs a handful of routines (including an awkward cat- themed number), but saves the three biggest for the very end: "Honeymoon Hotel", "By A Waterfall", and "Shanghai Lil". As was often the case, the dance numbers are meant to be staged within the context of the story (a show within a show) and as was always the case, Berkeley choreographs cinematically, using camera movements, insert shots, and cuts that make no sense within the reality of the story. But his routines are meant for the moviegoers and they are awe-inspiring.

The water nymph routine will blow you away. I've seen my fair share of Busby Berkeley numbers, but the water nymph sequence may be his masterpiece. Did Berkeley invent synchronized swimming? I don't know, but he might as well have. There are unbelievable kaleidoscopic overhead shots as well as underwater choreography. I can't figure out how they did the shot of the swimmers in concentric rings, spinning in different directions, since the swimmers seemed to be lying still in the water. (Movie magic?) The more complex overhead shots are some of the most impressive visuals I've ever seen in a musical.

"Honeymoon Hotel" is a racy little number about couples spending their first night together in a hotel. Men in pajamas, women in negligees, bedrooms. There's a peculiar "child" that runs around causing mischief, but the scene has a neat larger-than-life dollhouse shot and a creative bit of stop-motion animation. "Shanghai Lil" follows a sailor through a crowded saloon in search of an elusive woman. There's a brawl, there are marching soldiers in formation, there's Ruby Keeler dolled up like a Chinese call girl, and there's Jimmy Cagney dancing and singing.

With a great cast and impressive dances, this is an enjoyable ride. Maybe the best of the early WB musicals.

This fabulous movie must be viewed knowing that millions scraped together 10 cents to see it and forget the gloomy day-to-day economic conditions during the 30's. Remember, 10 cents bought a loaf of bread back then, so this was a minor luxury for many people. It's testimony to how Hollywood did its best to make the USA feel a little better about itself. You'll note that with the studio system in Hollywood at the time many of the actors and actresses were type-cast in similar movies, e.g. James Cagney, William Powell, Ruby Keeler, Frank McHugh, Joan Blondell and Guy Kibbee . Then too, branches of the U.S. military were always respected with enthusiasm and patriotism as in the use of military precision marching by the great choreographer, Busby Berkeley, at the end.

Stage musicals are having a rough go of it due to the rise in popularity of movies. So musical director Chester Kent (James Cagney) moves to producing prologues, which are short live musical stage productions that are presented in movie theaters before the movies are shown. Chester's prologues are a huge hit but the pressure of having to come up with new ideas is getting to him. To make matters worse, a rival prologue director is stealing many of his ideas. Now he has three days to come up with three brand new prologues and prevent their being stolen in order to land a big contract.

First-rate Busby Berkeley musical from Warner Bros. with a terrific cast and the wonderful choreography Berkeley was known for. Most of the musical numbers are saved for the last half-hour but they're all great. James Cagney and Joan Blondell are lots of fun. They always had perfect chemistry. There's also a lot of snappy pre-Code lines, particularly from Blondell. Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler are also enjoyable. Nice support from solid character actors Frank McHugh, Guy Kibbee, Arthur Hohl, and Hugh Herbert. Fast-paced and highly entertaining. Essential for fans of Berkeley or the great leads.

James Cagney is best known for his tough characters- and gangster roles but he has also played quite a lot 'soft' characters in his career. This musical is one of them and it was the first but not the last musical movie Cagney would star in.

Cagney is even doing a bit of singing in this one and also quite an amount of dancing. And it needs to be said that he was not bad at it. He plays the role with a lot of confidence. He apparently had some dancing jobs in his early life before his acting career started to take off big time, so it actually isn't a weird thing that he also took on some musical acting roles in his career. He obviously also feels at ease in this totally different genre than most people are accustomed to seeing him in.

The movie is directed by Lloyd Bacon, who was perhaps among the best and most successful director within the genre. His earliest '30's musicals pretty much defined the musical genre and he also was responsible for genre movies such as "42nd Street". His musicals were always light and fun to watch and more comedy like than anything else really. '30's musicals never were really about its singing, this was something that more featured in '40's and later made musicals, mainly from the MGM studios.

As usual it has a light and simple story, set in the musical world, that of course is also predictable and progresses in a formulaic way. It nevertheless is a fun and simple story that also simply makes this an entertaining movies to watch. So do the characters and actors that are portraying them. Sort of weird though that that the total plot line of the movie gets sort of abandoned toward the end of the movie, when the movie only starts to consists out of musical number routines.

The musical moments toward the ending of the movie are also amusing and well done, even though I'm not a too big fan of the genre itself. Once again the musical numbers also feature a young Billy Barty. he often played little boys/babies/mice and whatever more early on in his career, including the movie musical "Gold Diggers of 1933", of one year earlier.

A recommendable early genre movie.

8/10

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