Gold Diggers of 1935

Now obviously Busby Berkeley's Gold Diggers of 1935 is a musical, but when Dick Powell's first song arrived at the twenty-five minute mark, I was genuinely surprised. Powell has a couple of very good songs in this musical, and "The Lullaby of Broadway" (not his song) is really excellent. This movie is standard nonsensical 1930s fare, but it's funny, and the songs are good. If I'm honest, I found the Berkeley dance numbers a little lacking in this movie, but Alice Brady is an utter delight and is able to showcase her considerable comic abilities here.

I watched this on HBOmax. It's leaving the channel at the end of the month.

Also, I keep wondering if Busby Berkeley's name is pronounced the same as Berkeley Square in London or if it's the same as the University of California at Berkeley. I really don't know the answer to this.

Romance on the High Seas (1948)

Romance on the High Seas was Doris Day's first film, and she is billed fourth. Someone made a mistake; she would become a huge star – much bigger than everyone else who is billed higher than her here. She is incredible in this, and frankly the whole thing is quite fun. Day and Oscar Levant, especially, are hilarious.

Strike Up the Band

This is so cute and so much fun. It doesn't feel like a Busby Berkeley movie for most of the running time, and then there is the film's final, glorious sequence; it's Berkeley all over.

Fun fact, when Rooney and Garland produce a show in act two, at the end of it the curtain comes down and it says Next Week: East Lynne. This was a common thing producers put at the end of a bad show; East Lynne could always be counted on, and audiences loved the show. This is a kind of theatre joke in Strike Up the Band that most people would understand. Anyway, it reminded me that I had never seen East Lynne, so I finally decided to watch it.

I watched Strike Up the Band on DVD.

For Me and My Gal (1942)

For Me and My Gal is a fun romantic comedy with Judy Garland and Gene Kelly.

...And then it takes this very serious turn and becomes a war propaganda film. I sort of knew it would be, I guess. Any musical (jukebox or original) from 1942 is bound to be designed just to sell war bonds and sell the war, but this one sort of surprised me, mostly because it really is a strange turn for the film. This is a Busby Berkeley film, but not a Busby Berkeley film.

Oh, I think it is worth saying that Judy Garland and George Murphy are acting the hell out of this movie, and give actually deeply moving performances. For a nonsense Busby Berkeley war propaganda movie, it's quite astonishing. Their work is great.

The movie, on the other hand, is just a bit of jukebox fluff.

From 42nd Street

My favorite part of 42nd Street is when Ned Sparks, one of the producers, says of one of the other producers: "I don't like his face or any part of him. He looks like a Bulgarian boll weevil mourning its firstborn."

And then... mostly I thought this movie was pretty awful. It's terribly directed – the ending happens without any warning at all and without tying up two of the main storylines – and the two big musical numbers which close the show have nothing to do with anything, do not include both of the romantic leads, and generally make no sense. (Now, I don't always expect a musical number to make sense, but as the penultimate scene of a movie?)

I, of course, love Warner Baxter and George Brent. And Bebe Daniels, whose star faded pretty soon after 42nd Street, is just fabulous in this film - her drunk scene is absolutely amazing.

I am also a fan of Dick Powell, and the supporting cast is pretty uniformly good, but Ruby Keeler? She's awful. I am probably going to see Gold Diggers of 1933 in a week or two, and she's in that too, so I guess I will have another chance to see what she can do, but so far I just don't get it. She's flat and boring and just not that interesting. She dances beautifully, but next to a diva like Bebe Daniels, she looks like someone who could never have made it as a Hollywood star.

The important thing here is that the synopsis of this film says it is a Dick Powell-Ruby Keeler romance. It's not. It's a backstage musical with a single Busby Berkeley, ten storylines, and a romantic plot about George  Brent and Bebe Daniels (which is actually interesting).

Lest I sound like too much of a curmudgeon, 42nd Street did give us this fabulous song, and for that we should be grateful: