USA 102m Dir: Lloyd Bacon Key Cast: James Cagney, Joan Blondell
It didn't take me very long to realise that this follows the same pattern as 42nd Street in that most of it's run time is a behind the scenes comedy before the finale is an astounding set of Busby Berekley musical numbers.
The behind the scenes section sees Chester Kent (James Cagney) star as a director of Broadway musicals whose career has been destroyed by the advent of talkies. He then has the idea of producing musical numbers called 'prologues' to be shown before films and he then has the frantic job to continually come up with new ideas and produce more and more prologues and is so busy he doesn't even notice that his secretary Nan (Joan Blondell) is falling in love with him.
I thought this behind the scenes stuff was far stronger than that of 42nd Street. A lot of that can be put down to the two excellent leads. Blondell is wonderful as Nan, full of dry wit and genuinely superb at he job. James Cagney is surprising here as he plays against the gangster/hard man type. He's utterly brilliant as Kent and every second he's on screen he's zooming around the set spouting endless dialogue. The pace Kent lives his life is breath-taking and the moment he ends up on stage for the final performance is so fantastic.
I have limited experience of Busby Berkley's work but after just one example I'm already expecting spectacle and it certainly came here. I loved the song of 'Honeymoon Hotel' and 'Shanghai Lil' is pretty great but it's the performance of 'By A Waterfall' which is the most breath-taking, complete with incredible overhead shots in a synchronized swimming style and the spectacular human waterfall. It's looks utterly stunning and is perhaps the first time I've really yearned for a black and white film to have some colour to really enhance the spectacle.
One thing I must note is that there are several moments where the film has bad attitudes to race. One see Kent look at black kids playing with water on the street and then immediately make a comment about wanting to see 'white bodies' which feels a little uncomfortable but not as much as when Ruby Keeler is put in Asian make-up for 'Shanghai Lil', a song which is full of stereotypes. It's not horrendously racist in the way some other films of the era were but there are plenty of areas which feel wrong.
Big musicals are really not my thing but I have to say that I loved this film- it's so witty and joyous and lovely to watch.
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