Dames

DAMES (Warner Brothers, 1934), directed by Ray Enright, with choreography by Busby Berkeley, is another backstage story with more music than plot. The central character is Ezra Ounce (Hugh Herbert), an eccentric millionaire and founder of the Ounce Foundation of American Morals, who wants to spend his money improving other people's morals. He decides to spend a month at his cousin Mathilda Hemingway's New York home (ZaSu Pitts), to see that she and her husband, Horace (Guy Kibbee) and their daughter, Barbara (Ruby Keeler) have been living clean moral lives. If so, the family then will inherit his $10 million. Aside from not liking women (!), the only other thing Ezra cannot tolerate is show people. It so happens that Barbara is in love with Jimmy Higgens (Dick Powell, in an energetic performance), a playwright/ composer who hopes to find a backer for his show, "Sweet and Hot," and her father, Horace, has encountered Mabel Anderson (Joan Blondell), a stranded showgirl, in his train compartment, leaving her money and his business card with a note written in the back "please do not mention this unfortunate incident to a soul." After Mabel meets up with Jimmy and his troupe, and learns that Barbara is the daughter of the "sugar daddy" Horace, she comes upon an idea of how to get the money from him to back Jimmy's musical show. Yes, by doing some gold digging.

Songs featured in the story: "When You Were a Smile on Your Mother's Lips, and a Twinkle in Your Daddy's Eye" (possibly the longest title for a single song/written by Irving Kahal and Sammy Fain); "I Only Have Eyes For You" (by Harry Warren and Al Dubin) and "Try to See It My Way" (by Mort Dixon and Allie Wrubel). For the Broadway production numbers, all written by Warren and Dubin, and running about 10 minutes each, first comes Joan Blondell dressed in turn of the century clothes performing and singing with other laundry girls to the amusing "The Girl at the Ironing Board" which includes one witty lyric, 'When I'm off on Sundays, I miss all these undies'; followed by "I Only Have Eyes for You" sung by Powell to Keeler, with girls using picture puzzles of Keeler that later fit together to form one gigantic picture of Keeler's face; and "Dames" sung by Powell, performed by a parade of pretty chorines dressed in white blouses and black tights doing their geometric patterns, tap dancing, and Berkeley going crazy with his camera tricks, facial close-ups, leg tunnels, etc. Before the show meets up with a riot started by Ezra's stooges, Blondell comes out center stage in baby clothes singing "Try to See It My Way, Baby" along with other chorines.

I find DAMES acceptable entertainment, although some of the comedy may be trite, with both plot and production numbers starting to repeat themselves. While many critics mention that Ruby Keeler lacks in acting ability, I find her bad acting very noticeable here more than in any of her other movies, past and future, especially when she plays angry and jealous over Powell's attention towards Blondell. This is one of those rare exceptions that I did find her performance annoying than likable. It's interesting to note however that with all the songs, she doesn't get to sing any of them (excluding briefly talking her lyric to "Eyes for You"), and tap dances a minute or two to piano playing to the tune "Dames" during a pre-Broadway tryout. DAMES also marks the fourth and final Powell-Keeler-Berkeley collaboration. In the age of 1930s screwball comedy, Pitts, Kibbee and Herbert fit their character roles perfectly, and all manage to later get drunk after drinking Dr. Silver's Golden Elixer. Also in the cast are Leila Bennett as the bewildered housekeeper, Laura; Johnny Arthur as Billings, Ounce's personal secretary; and songwriter Sammy Fain appearing as songwriter, Buttercup Baumer. One final note, "I Only Have Eyes For You" should have at least been nominated for Academy Award as Best Song of 1934. (***)

No one who lived through the Great Depression could possibly take seriously negative comments on the quality and content this film written by youngsters with no sense of its historical context. To lament its silliness or find fault with what seem now to be crude mechanical cinematographic devices just begs the question.

This movie could not be recreated in the twenty-first century even in the smallest part. In the first place, musicals are now passé. The drag parody of the title number "Dames" in 1988's film Torch Song Trilogy is proof of that. Moreover, its stock characters (Hugh Herbert, Guy Kibbee, Zasu Pitts) were simply reprising common comedic roles of the day, completely unsuited to the harsher and more cynical models now in vogue. And Ruby Keeler's numbers lack totally the athleticism of our contemporary dancers.

What we can appreciate about the movie is how it fits nicely into the Busby Berkeley oeuvre. After his huge successes of 1933, this example is a fitting continuation to his development as a moviemaker. The catastrophic effects of the Great Depression like mass unemployment, hunger, wholesale uprooting of communities, and abject poverty affecting the lives of millions of ordinary Americans could be forgotten for a few pennies spent in the local movie house. It played to the needs of its time.

Interestingly, the packaging of female pulchritude in the film also fits with that time. What today seems borderline pornographic or insulting to women was accepted without much fuss in 1934. Indeed, any student of Freud could have a field day deconstructing some of the Berkeley images.

As to the music, it is simply classic. Dick Powell's phrasing is a model of tenor sensibility in an age of Big Band baritones. One has to accept that continuity or theatrical presentation is not a factor. Each number stands or falls entirely on its own as seen through the lens of the camera. As an early prototype of the Hollywood musical, Dames was and is a smash hit.

...from Warner Brothers and directors Ray Enright and Busby Berkeley. Ultra-wealthy Ezra Ounce (Hugh Herbert) promises to bequeath $10 million to his relatives Horace (Guy Kibbee), Mathilda (Zasu Pitts), and Barbara (Ruby Keeler), as long as they live a "just and moral life", which includes no show business. Barbara's boyfriend and distant cousin Jimmy (Dick Powell) wants to put on a big musical show, and he teams with brassy showgirl Mabel (Joan Blondell) to make it happen, even if Ezra won't approve.

The story is silly, the characters are one-dimensional, and it takes a long time to get to the musical numbers. The song "I Only Have Eyes for You" has become a true standard, although the dance number here features chorus girls wearing Ruby Keeler masks and it gets kind of disquieting. Blondell has an oddball number singing to men's underwear, while the title number features a smirking Powell espousing the virtues of dames. This wasn't bad, and probably lots of the deficiencies were caused by the production code, which began to be enforced just a month before this film was released.

Dick Powell and the music of Warren and Dubin is reason enough to watch this otherwise average musical. Busby Berkley's choreography is an aquired taste - I prefer the elegance of Hermes Pan/Fred Astaire and the expert tapping of George Murphy and Eleanor Powell, or even the highly entertaining Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and Shirley Temple duets. But these all came later than DAMES and Berkley's eye-candy style is highly entertaining and, sometimes, memorable.

I never thought Ruby Keeler was terribly talented and her lack of acting ability does show, especially in the company of such accomplished players as Joan Blondell, Powell, Hugh Herbert, and Guy Kibbee. Keeler's acting is passable, if a bit clumsy, and I find her dancing adequate. (She was called, in some 1930s circles, "The Stomper" for her heavy-footed tapping.)

What makes this film a winner is the music. The title song is wonderful and the splendid "I Only Have Eyes For You" is one of the best songs ever written for a movie. That song is fully performed twice, once about midway into the film and, differently, near the end. The later performance is fine, the former one of the screen's greatest musical numbers. Powell sings it with his beautiful high tenor and Berkley provides probably his best ever production. I dare the viewer to not get goose bumps when watching this.

Take away the music and Busby Berkley and you're left with not much except a (mostly) great cast. I give "DAMES" my highest rating for the music and production numbers and a solid middle ranking for the plot. One could do a lot worse than spend 90 minutes with DAMES.

Busby fans have to wait until the last part for their guy to do his stuff. But then it's a real eye-popper. The dames keep comin' at yah one after another, blondes, brunettes, and in- betweens. What a line-up of 30's cuties. Then there's Berkeley's trademark: feminine geometry. That's enough to give Freud analytic overload and others x-rated dreams. Good thing those fluid figures were too abstract for the censors to erase. Speaking of blue- noses, '34 was the first year of Code enforcement. So, wouldn't be surprised the plot was jabbing at our watchdogs of public morality. After all, ridding the city of stage shows is the millionaire's (Hugh Herbert) favorite hobby. It's a winning cast, even if Powell mugs it up faster than a Ferrari's RPM's. True, Keeler's hoofing may be on the clunky side, still she's got the sweetest smile this side of Hollywood and Vine. Too bad the real dame, Blondell, was hobbled by six months of motherly gestation. Working her camera angles must have been a real challenge. I know a lot of folks don't especially like these antique concoctions. But in my book, they're inspired combinations of artistry, pizazz, and sheer Hollywood hokum.