Starring Dick Powell, Gloria Stuart, Alice Brady, and Hugh Herbert
Directed by Busby Berkeley
Music by Harry Warren and Al Dubin
Warners and Busby Berkeley were on a roll with their series of backstage comedies featuring snappy repartee, Warren and Dubin's memorable music, and a rotating troupe of not-so-naive ingenues, tough dames, snooty rich backers, desperate directors, and husband-hunting chorus girls. Gold Diggers of 1933 was such a smash, Warners turned it into a series of unrelated backstage musicals revolving around show business folks butting heads with high society. How does the second Gold Diggers movie - and the first full directing assignment for Berkeley - look nowadays? Let's begin as the various managers of the resort hotel Wentworth Plaza admonish their staff on how to treat their wealthy guests and find out...
The Story: Among those wealthy guests are Matilda Prentiss (Brady), a millionairess who keeps her money by spending as little of it as she can. She's trying to encourage her daughter Ann (Stuart) to wed rich and eccentric T. Mosley Thorpe (Herbert), but Ann finds him and his constant talk about his snuff box collection to be insufferably silly and dull. Matilda has already had to bail Ann's brother Humbolt (Frank McHugh) out of four bad marriages and has no desire for her daughter go through the same, but Ann is bored and fed up with both Thorpe and her mother's stranglehold on her.
Mrs. Prentiss hires desk clerk Dick Curtis (Powell) to escort her daughter around the resort and keep her out of trouble. Dick does it for the money, but he soon falls for intelligent and feisty Ann. Meanwhile, Mrs. Prentiss swears she'll throw the least amount possible into the annual charity show for the Milk Fund, but flamboyant Russian director Nicolai Nicoleff (Adolph Menjou) ends up spending her money like water on lavish numbers. He's hoping to skim off the earnings with the help of hotel manager Louis Lampson (Grant Mitchell), even as stenographer Betty Hawes (Glenda Farrell) blackmails Thorpe.
The Song and Dance: With a story that flimsy, "song and dance" are definitely the operative words here. Though Powell and Stuart have good moments as the star-crossed pair, the real stars are the supporting cast. Brady and Menjou are hilarious as the stingy older woman who laments losing even a penny of her vast wealth and the desperate Russian director who hopes her money will make a hit and put him back in the black. Herbert also has some good moments as the silly snuff box collector, while McHugh and Dorothy Dare as Dick's fiancee make a surprisingly cute second couple. There's some amazing sets and costumes in this film too, both in Berkeley's big musical numbers and in and around the massive New Hampshire resort.
The Numbers: Our first number is an instrumental dance routine for the many workers who keep the Wentworth Plaza humming and its guests happy, from dancing street sweepers outside the hotel to maids who are seen in Berkeley overhead shots. Dick says "I'm Goin' Shoppin' With You" as he and Ann purchase a whole new wardrobe from Berkeley chorus girl shop keepers and spend her mother's money. We originally hear "The Words are In My Heart" when Dick serenades Ann during a moonlit boat ride. It's reprised later in the Milk Fund show, this time in a far more elaborate Berkeley routine. The number starts with Dick and Ann singing in the woods before moving to three sisters playing the piano. This turns into rows and rows of chorus girls in whites performing with pianos that seemingly dance around them, thanks to the men obviously moving around under them.
The big number by far is "Lullaby of Broadway." We begin in darkness, as the camera moves in on Wini Shaw singing the number. She turns into an animated skyline, which becomes shots of the typical day of a working girl (Shaw). Eventually, she goes out with her tuxedo-clad lover (Powell) to a nightclub where we get massive lines of men in tuxes and chorus girls in surprisingly scanty black costumes for a movie made shortly after the Production Code began tapping their hearts out on enormous Art-Deco risers. The whole thing moves to conclusion that might be a little too dark for both the upbeat songs and this largely fluffy movie.
Trivia: Gloria Stuart did have some success in the 30's, including this film, but she's best-known to most audiences nowadays as the elder Rose who tells the flashback sequences in the 1997 Titanic.
"Lullaby of Broadway" won Best Original Song and Best Dance Direction in 1935.
What I Don't Like: I wish they came up with a more interesting story to stuff between those crazy numbers. It lacks the Depression grit of the 1933 entries and has more in common with the runaway heiress screwball comedies that were also popular in this era. "Lullaby of Broadway" is such a brilliant number, it feels totally disconnected from - and out of place in - the rest of the film. It's also a lot darker than the rest of the movie, including that downer ending.
The Big Finale: Worth seeing for the numbers alone if you're a fan of Berkeley or the big backstage musicals of the 1930's.
Home Media: It's currently pricey on DVD. Your best bet might be streaming.
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