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Rating: Golden Diggers 33 - The Dance of the Lights, USA, 1933, 97’,
by Mervyn LeRoy, with Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, Ginger Rogers
A very wealthy young man with a hobby for singing courts a dancer without revealing his true identity. However, the plot is just a pretext for a series of legendary choreographic numbers directed by Busby Berkeley, including the unusual Remember My Forgotten Man, about the drama of the Great Depression.
Although I don't find the plot "just a pretext" as the festival caption states, I must honestly admit that the musical sequences, particularly Remember My Forgotten Man which closes the feature film, outshine, in terms of quality, the story and the film itself.
However, this happens simply because the "musical" parts are so beautiful, astonishing, exceptional, that it is inevitable they overshadow the film in some way. Also, keep in mind that the musical parts cover about twenty minutes of the total 97, so it's a musical comedy and not a true musical.
Nevertheless, the film remains, in any case, very entertaining.
In English, Gold diggers refers to someone looking to marry for financial gain and, in colloquial English, it refers to women who try to snag men of a certain age, mostly rich or very wealthy.
A cliché identified the dancers of the musical in question as such. We will see some interesting turns in this regard.
It will be the incognito wealthy young man (also a musician and composer) who will offer the broke and indebted producer (but full of ideas) the funds to realize this show. A new, unusual show, no longer just made of glitz and sequins but that deals with the modern theme of the Great Depression, with a particular focus on the "forgotten man," the man returned from war (always the first, the world war) and left to fend for himself, standing in line in the rain, for a bowl of soup.
In essence, this young man spectacularly courts Polly Parker (Ruby Keeler), the sweetest and loveliest of the group (yes, for me even better than Ginger Rogers, here in a secondary role). But can you imagine the scandal? An industrial captain, mega-millionaire, marrying a Gold Digger? This wedding is not to be! And that's where the comedy (indeed very lively) begins. The girls unite and concoct a ridiculous but effective plan that will trigger a series of fast-paced gags and misunderstandings. Irresistible are the sketches between Trixie (Aline MacMahon) a true Gold Digger herself, and the elderly Mr. Peabody (Guy Kibbe) the family lawyer of the young millionaire Brad (Dick Powell).
The peculiarity of this film is that it leaves you disoriented, in the sense that around a love-comedy, you would never expect a coda of denunciation (against the war, America, its citizen-soldiers abandoned and forgotten) of such size and proportions, conveyed through a musical whose choreographic numbers (the dance of the lights or the violins) will leave you stunned and full of wonder.
This (was) Hollywood!
...this or these? (okay whatever, my English is rustic, so).
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