Footlight Parade (1933)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Lloyd Bacon

Writers:

Manuel Seff (writer)
James Seymour (writer)

Release Date:

21 October 1933 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Musical | Romance

Tagline:

Climaxing Warner Bros.' glittering parade of musicals!

Plot:

Chester Kent struggles against time, romance, and a rival's spy to produce spectacular live "prologues" for movie houses.

Plot Keywords:

Secretary | Dance | Movie Theater | Brother Sister Relationship | Fainting

Awards:

1 win

Cast

James Cagney	...	Chester Kent
Joan Blondell	...	Nan Prescott
Ruby Keeler	...	Bea Thorn
Dick Powell	...	Scott 'Scotty' Blair
Frank McHugh	...	Francis, dance director
Ruth Donnelly	...	Harriet Bowers Gould
Guy Kibbee	...	Silas 'Si' Gould
Hugh Herbert	...	Charlie Bowers
Claire Dodd	...	Vivian Rich
Gordon Westcott	...	Harry Thompson
Arthur Hohl	...	Al Frazer
Renee Whitney	...	Cynthia Kent
Barbara Rogers	...	Gracie
Paul Porcasi	...	George Apolinaris
Philip Faversham	...	Joe Barrington

Runtime:

104 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:A (original rating, cut version) | UK:U | USA:Approved (PCA #2649)

Filming Locations:

Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Dorothy Lamour's first film.

Goofs:

Continuity: The newspaper claims that Honeymoon Hotel has "400 rooms, 400 baths," and yet later we see all guests of each floor disappearing into a single bathroom on each floor.

Quotes:

Chester Kent: Well, I sure know how to pick 'em.
Nan Prescott: You said it, Papa.
Chester Kent: Maybe you should help me next time, huh?
Nan Prescott: What do you think I've been trying to do?

Movie Connections:

Featured in Indie Sex: Censored (2007) (TV)

Soundtrack:

By a Waterfall

Historically significant film....

"Footlight Parade" is fascinating on so many levels. There is no way the supposedly staged "theater prologues" could have been produced in any theater on earth, of course. Think of the huge pools and three-story tall fountains for "By A Waterfall," for instance. (Berkeley directed John Garfield in "They Made Me a Criminal" six years later and had the Dead End Kids singing "By a Waterfall" as they took their showers.)

"Shanghai Lil" is the best production number in the picture. It's a catalog of '30s Warner Bros. sensibilities. Note the African guys mixed into the scene with white and Asian prostitutes. You would never see blacks integrated into a social scene in other films of the period unless they were porters on a train or maids in a big house. Here the black guys are sitting at the bar and singing with the others. I also get a thrill when the military dancers do a "card section" presentation of Roosevelt's image. There's also the NRA eagle--the logo of the controversial National Recovery Administration of the New Deal. FDR was the new president and hopes were so high that he'd pull the nation out of the Depression. You'd never see something so working class oriented coming out of MGM, of course. Warner Bros. wholeheartedly supported the uplift dictated by the F.D.R. administration.

Dear little Miss Ruby Keeler was never better than she is playing the Chinese hooker, "Lil." She hardly even watches her feet as she dances, which was one of her signature flaws.

The Pre-Code stuff is fun. The "By a Waterfall" number is wonderful in that regard. The girls change into their bathing suits on the crowded bus speeding through Times Square with all its lights on. The spread-eagle girls swimming over the camera provide the kind of crotch shots that would not be seen for 35 years. In a few months the Production Code would eliminate such naughty pleasures.