Gold Diggers of 1933

The Depression looms large over the lives of these showgirls – skipping the rent, desperate for employment, putting things in hock. And what a fun group of girls it is between Aline MacMahon’s acid tongue, Joan Blondell’s raw intensity, and a pre-supernova Ginger Rogers playing one of her good time gals. Oh yeah, and Ruby Keeler is there paired off with perpetually horny chipmunk Dick Powell, but they’re thankfully kept as part of an ensemble and not the major focus.

Gold Diggers of 1933 is one of the best musical films of the 30s, and probably the best of the Gold Diggers franchise. Busby Berkeley crafted some truly wondrous and memorable numbers here between the opening “We’re in the Money,” with chorus girls dripping in coins and Rogers singing a verse in Pig Latin, and “Waltz of the Shadows” where the violins were neon-tubed and arranged in his ornate geometric patterns. It’s like staring inside the kaleidoscope of queerness.

This pre-code delight features a few moments of self-awareness including a Powell proxy that makes a joke about his status as eternal romantic lead. It’s as though the backstage musical was already codifying at this early stage of development and this entry wanted to both embrace and (lovingly) mock them. It succeeds at both tasks while unspooling one hallucinatory and gorgeous number after another. (It’s always a treat to see what Hollywood imagines is possible on a Broadway stage which are always roughly the size of a hangar.)

In fact, that opening sequence is something of a meta moment as the dancing coins of “We’re in the Money” come to a grinding halt as the show is bust up for failure to pay its bills. That’s right, a sequence all about monetary stability and indulging in the capitalist dream is immediately brought to a crash. If this isn’t a commentary about the Great Depression, then what else could it be?

The gritty, street wise chorines of this film provide the larger film with a pleasingly cynical yet sisterly tone that is quite fetching. These sisters are doing it for themselves, alright, as they scheme for employment and play fast and loose in a farce-like romantic subplot. MacMahon and Blondell get some of their best work in these sections as MacMahon goes full tilt into kooky auntie territory and Blondell reveals what a dynamite performer they were sitting on waiting to get better parts. Her tear-streaked phone call promising employment feels like a dose of reality in a largely artificial, if cynical, world.

It's this tension between the fantasy of the musical sequences and the grim reality of the narrative beats that power Gold Diggers of 1933. Mervyn LeRoy, an uneven and hypermasculine director, finds the dramatics entirely within his wheelhouse while Berkeley’s fantasias of bodies, props, and ever shifting patterns makes the performance zip. Berkeley’s contributions often overwhelm LeRoy’s more static camera, but Berkeley’s films were often like this even before he took over directing them outright. This isn’t entirely a negative as several musicals in-between segments are merely excuses to get from one number to the next.

It all culminates in “My Forgotten Man,” a musical number that combines the gritty realities of the backstage stuff and the unreality of the musical numbers collide in sublime friction. The sight of these dames and guys acting out the bread lines and destitution ends with a musical swell and a “The End” that catches us by surprise. In the end, Gold Diggers of 1933 is about what it takes to survive the zeitgeist at any given moment.