(89 mins.) Released 1933-02-23
Director: Lloyd Bacon
Stars: Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, George Brent, Ruby Keeler
Busby Berkeley ... creator: dances and ensembles / stager: dances and ensembles
originally posted 8 Oct 2017 19:16
(Great cover art here with the receding legs. Very BB, as in Busby Berkeley, y'know, not Brigitte Bardot.)
This backstage musical has plenty of storylines and characters (and welcome character actors) to keep me interested for the whole 70 minute buildup to the opening night. Then we get 20 minutes of heavenly stage musical, most of which wouldn't fit on a stage. But it's grand, with cinematic appeal. It's clear why this would have revived the movie musical, after years of mostly drab flicks that relied on the novelty of synced sound.
One of the smart creative choices: we see lots of rehearsal, especially with the 48 chorus girls (and 16 boys) dancing badly, but the finished product looks nothing like the rehearsals. Part of that is that the sets and costumes add so much, but the dancing is not just better than rehearsals, but very different. (I count only 33 chorus girls in the credits, and 4 boys, but in the early part of the story they mention needing 40 girls in the show. In the large girl+boy overhead shot, it looks like more than 40 girls. Yup I hit pause and counted: 48 and 16.)
The print is very good; it's hard to believe that the blu-ray would be much better, and holds only 20+ additional modern featurettes (and 2 cartoons that were released on other films in the BB box set) and still no commentary track. (The blu-ray was a Warner Archive release, so they weren't expecting high sales volume.)
I should re-evaluate my rating after seeing some of the other BB films I rated 8. This one might be a 9.
Warner Bros, dir. Bacon [+BB], 8+
