Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

MissSimonetta Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) is incredibly hard to categorize. All at once, it's a musical extravaganza, romantic comedy, satire, and biting social commentary of the Great Depression. Few films are so thoroughly of their time and place, to the point where they can give us something of a glimpse into the mindset of the period in which they were created. The cast reads like a who's who of early 1930s Hollywood: Joan Blondell, Ginger Rogers, Warren William, Ruby Keeler, and Dick Powell to name a few. Each actor is dazzling.It's also a microcosm of pre-code subversiveness. The values of the moral guardians of the day are thoroughly mocked on almost every topic, from sex to class. With the exception of Baby Face (1933), few other pre-codes were as gleefully devious. A must watch for everyone.

vert001 When I'm in the right mood I think of THE GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 as the best musical ever made. Mostly I find its tonal shifts a bit incoherent for that high honor, but GOLD DIGGERS is at least a strong contender.For my money, a great musical ought to have a great original musical score (sorry SINGING IN THE RAIN) and beyond that ought to be of real interest even in the absence of its music. I don't mean that we're looking for Hamlet or King Lear, such complexity would probably make successful musical integration impossible, but a clever treatment of a solid subject will do. GOLD DIGGERS presents us with a sharp comedy of errors book-ended by a pair of serious production numbers. Probably a unique structure and not entirely successful, but the parts of this structure rarely descend below the marvelous.Maybe only 'We're In The Money' (really titled 'The Gold Digger's Song') can stand alone from the film's score, but Warren and Dubin's other efforts all work perfectly within Berkeley's inspired production numbers. Those numbers are a slight advance on 42nd STREET's, more consistently elaborate and spread out within the picture, which was probably a good idea. The opening number, springing immediately from the opening credits, seems as merry and frivolous as they come until its conclusion is cut off by a sheriff's repossession, giving us a textbook example for the word 'ironic'. There remain serious undertones through the nice expository scenes in the girls' apartment which follow, but the movie soon shifts to pure comedy, and the musical numbers along with it (especially the deliriously surreal 'Pettin' in the Park'). Once the comical confusions have been cleared up the ultimate 'Forgotten Man' number comes nearly out of nowhere (Ned Sparks had given us slight anticipation for it much earlier on). Its relevance to recent events in 1933 is clear (WW I vets had been promised bonuses for their old age. Given the economic circumstances, they had demanded the bonuses immediately and marched on Washington in protest, camping out there for quite some time. Eventually the government ordered the military, under Douglas MacArthur as it happened, to clear them out, and this was done violently. It shook a lot of people up, referenced here by Joan Blondell's memorable glare towards the cop telling the homeless veteran to move on, but it doesn't seem to have much to do with the movie we've just seen so far as I could tell).The Forgotten Man number is brilliant, however, and so had been the movie that we had just watched. Aline MacMahon and Guy Kibbee are particularly funny, Warren William does well in the thankless role of the straight man to everybody's jokes, Ginger Rogers gives further proof of her versatility as she projects pure vanity perfectly. It's unfortunate that she nearly disappears from the movie early on (and for that matter, Keeler practically disappears from it once the Willam/Kibbee-Blondell/MacMahon plot takes center stage). Ginger actually filmed a very bluesy/sad version of 'I've Got To Sing A Torch Song' which must have been meant for sometime around the scene when Trixie threw Fay out of that nightclub for coming on to 'Fanny'. The film seems to have disappeared though for those interested the sound track can be heard on Youtube. It would have given a twist to the character of Fay, a one-noter as she now exists.THE GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 may not be the best of all possible musicals, but if someone were to ask me for the most representative film from Hollywood in the 1930s, GOLD DIGGERS would be the one.

Spondonman Classy film complete with classy guys, classy dames and classy tunes. This was the perfect bookend to 42nd St, the perfect let's put on a show film, so much so when young I used to get them completely mixed up and with interchangeable songs. I hadn't seen it in over 15 years but thanks to a very Good Samaritan I saw it again tonight and was suitably re-impressed and wondered how I could ever get confused. Why, 42nd St had marvellous songs while Gold Diggers Of 1933 had magnificent songs.Mysterious song composer, singer, actor Dick Powell mysteriously bankrolls a stage musical, with his girl Ruby Keeler starring. Turns out he has an old fashioned morally stern family headed by brother Warren William who doesn't approve of his lifestyle, leading to most of the dialogue in the script. In her choice of men the cheap and vulgar Joan Blondell must've needed those big eyes testing! The innocent love affair between Powell and Keeler is again enchanting to take in, along with Blondell's and Aline MacMahon's incessant coy pre-Code quips. Songs include We're In The Money, Torch Song, Petting In The Park, Forgotten Man, and the unforgettable Shadow Waltz imho the finest Warren & Dubin collaboration. And Busby Berkeley excelled himself in the production of that one too, the number seems to get more amazing as the years pass when you remember the technical limitations they had to put up with in 1933 with such fine results.All in all one of the best musicals produced, with so many memorable bits, from pre-Code sassiness to gloriously romantic tunes. This is a film where getting a lodging for a night takes on a whole new meaning! Sadly it all got a little tamer after this and Footlight Parade, but what a ride.

calvinnme This is supposed to be a pseudo-remake of 1929's "Gold Diggers of Broadway", except in the four year interim the Great Depression is in full swing and our gold diggers have hit on bad times like everyone else. The second Berkeley film in the Warner series of musicals starts off with Ginger Rogers singing "We're in the Money" in an outrageous number in which the chorus girls are all dressed in over-sized coins. As Ginger sings part of the number in pig-Latin, the whole thing seems surreal, and in a way it is. The sheriff breaks in on the number to repossess everything on the set to settle the debts of the show's producer, and the gold diggers are out of work again. I don't know why I keep calling them gold diggers, because this cadre of chorines are just looking for steady work. They have abandoned all hope of getting millionaire husbands to take them away from all of this.Brad Roberts (Dick Powell) comes to their rescue when he comes up with both the money and the songs for a new show that broke but creative producer Barney Hopkins (Ned Sparks) has in mind. Thinking that Brad is penniless like the rest of them, the girls at first think Brad is playing a tasteless joke before he produces the 15K, and that he is a bank robber on the run afterwards. This is reinforced by his refusal to make any personal appearance in the show. In fact Brad is a young man from a wealthy New England family who is hiding his work in the theatre from his snobbish old-money relatives who soon surface to reclaim him in the person of his brother, Lawrence (Warren William), and the family lawyer (Guy Kibbee). When they find out Brad is planning to marry one of the girls (Ruby Keeler), Brad's brother decides to find the girl, flash his cash, and thus romance her himself, since he presumes she is a gold digger. He figures this will prove to Brad just what kind of girl he has fallen for. Unfortunately, Brad's brother doesn't know what she looks like. And that's where the fun starts.There's some great pre-code comedy here particularly from Joan Blondell, not to mention her stirring performance of "Forgotten Man" about World War I soldiers who are now marching in Depression Era bread lines. Also not to be missed is "Shadow Waltz" with the chorus girls playing fake fluorescent violins that would occasionally short out and shock the girls.Guy Kibbee and Aline McMahon are both terrifically funny and touching in one of the film's subplots as two people who find genuine love later in life than they may have wanted and originally planned. They are basically reprising the roles played by Albert Gran and Winnie Lightner in Gold Diggers of Broadway. However, Aline MacMahon has a subtle even homespun brand of humor versus Lightner's brash style.As in The Gold Diggers of Broadway, the film ends with the show itself, but these are two entirely different shows for two entirely different eras. The 1929 film ends with chorus girls parading around in elaborate costumes and decorated by two-strip Technicolor while acrobats and tap dancers strut their exhilarated stuff. The 1933 film ends with a number about forgotten men marching both off to war and back to bread lines in spartan black and white. A powerful ending for a great piece of entertainment.