Footlight Parade. 1933. Directed by Lloyd Bacon.

(5/29/00)

It's frenetic. The viewer gets caught up in the sheer energy of the whole thing. It's about the trials and tribulations of a showman who, facing extinction due to talking pictures, decides to produce prologues to accompany those pictures.

A young James Cagney plays the showman. He faces a competitor who steals his ideas, partners who are screwing him out of his share of the profits, a woman who wants to marry him for money, and a host of other plagues. He fights his way through all these troubles in a manner reminiscent of the performance he was to give so many years later in Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three. And we even get to see him sing and dance.

This is film of the depression. It is about struggle, hard work and an aggressive attitude towards life's challenges. It shows show business as just that--business--and damn hard work as well.
This picture has a wonderful ensemble, including Cagney, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Huy Kibbee, Frank McHugh and Hugh Herbert. They are all fun to watch, although Hugh Herbert grates on me a little. Dick Powell is likable and eager and all that, though why he is so interested in Ruby Keeler when she looks so dowdy is a little beyond me.

The film takes a tough, cynical stance, particularly where relationships are concerned. I addition to being pursued by a mercenary woman, Cagney is married to a woman who doesn't go through with a divorce when it looks like Cagney will make good and then wants $25,000 to leave him alone.

The musical numbers are what the audience waits for in this film. They are strung together at the end. They are elaborate fantasies concocted by Busby Berkley. "Honeymoon Hotel" is a lot of fun with its midget dressed as a child and ending up in bed with Powell, but I was a little disappointed with "By a Waterfall" which has no story, but does have elaborate visual designs. Perhaps the song itself didn't grab me.

"Shanghai Lil" is the finale of the film and quite memorable. It is clever how we hear the music of "Shanghai Lil" throughout the film, preparing us for this finale. I loved it how the male performer didn't feel he can go on and he and Cagney come to blows. A figure falls onto the stage just as the curtain goes up, but we don't see who it is. The camera follows the unidentified figure through the first part of the sequence and then finally reveals that it is Cagney himself. I really liked that.

"Shanghai Lil" goes a little overboard towards the end with its legions of sailors, performers forming a great American flag with a picture of FDR and then the NRA symbol. But then, the whole picture tends towards the over-the-top. But it's certainly enjoyable.

(5/30/00)

One great moment I neglected to mention is when Frank McHugh rehearses a love duet with Dick Powell. (They hadn't chosen the female singer yet.) He sings the lines that were meant to be sung by a young woman with a cigar in his mouth. I really enjoyed that.