Footlight Parade Reviews

Of Busby Berkeley’s three 1933 Warner Brothers films, I would place Footlight Parade in the bronze slot with Gold Diggers of 1933 in the gold and 42^nd Street in silver. I suppose a lot of the enjoyment one gets out of Footlight Parade is your ability to stomach the likes of Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler in their blushing, virginal pairing roles. Frankly, I’d rather spend a lot more time with James Cagney’s scheming producer, Joan Blondell’s gal Friday, and the various contract players filling in the colorful supporting roles.

By this point, the less time I must spend watching Keeler’s off-beat dancing, all the better. Same with Powell’s perpetually erect chipmunk routine. Powell was much better as darker characters where his bland, wholesome looks stood in contrast to the material. Keeler here gets to take that “mousy girl lets her hair down and takes off her glasses to reveal the uniquely talented beauty underneath” trope to play, and I guess it’s fun to watch if you’re a fan of hers. I found the two of them to be the weakest aspects of these films, and they’re typically the leads.

But all is forgiven when the leashes come off and Berkeley gets to go buckwild in his hallucinatory geometric sequences. “Honeymoon Hotel” is saucy in parts but largely has to be endured to get to the far better “By a Waterfall.” Berkeley would be responsible for Esther Williams’ aquatic musicals in a few years, and “By a Waterfall” is a trial run for the insane kitsch of those things. A grass knoll gives way to a fairy tale idyll where you half expect a Disney princess to sing her love ballad. Instead we get an abstraction of shapely female legs and water spouting everywhere. Subtle? Not at all, and a delightful piece of camp for it.

Shame this is followed-up with “Shanghai Lil,” where Keller is in yellowface as a China doll vamp. The whole number is an excuse to alternately slut shame and rise the patriotic flag, sometimes both at the same time if you catch my drift. Sure, it’s nice to see Cagney tap dance away in the number, but the ugliness of the Chinese stereotype at play undercuts a lot of the enjoyment.

There’s plenty of Pre-Code sauciness, including Blondell’s epic tell-off to a former roommate, and Cagney’s live-wire performance to keep it all going. Lloyd Bacon’s not exactly a stylist so the dramatic scenes are efficient and a nice blank canvas for Berkeley to go big and weird. Your endearment to this one will depend squarely on how you will feel about Keeler and Powell as juvenile leads. I like my showbiz types with a little more personality.