I have discovered that I am a huge Jimmy Cagney fan. The man is just a magnetic screen presence. Previously seen in
White Heat, at his most dangerous and gangsterous, we now see him in a light musical comedy, where he gets to display his very impressive hoofing skills (and sing a little, too). And it's got Busby Berkeley choreography in all its ridiculous fabulosity! And to top it off, it's got my fave pre-code actress Joan Blondell as Cagney's character Chester Kent's long-suffering secretary who not-so-secretly pines for him. Plus ace tap-dancer and doll-like wholesome cutie Ruby Keeler! What more could you want? Why aren't you watching it RIGHT NOW? Possibly because it left the Criterion Channel last night, which is why we watched it. And aren't we glad we did, because it's non-stop entertainment. The basic story is that Chester used to put on shows but thanks to the advent of the talkies, nobody wants to go see live singers and dancers any more. EXCEPT: apparently "prologues" for the movies were a thing, where short song-and-dance numbers would precede the film showings at certain theaters (and indeed, this was a way to pull the punters into your theater rather than a rival's), and Chester hits on the idea of having traveling prologue groups putting on the same show at a string of theaters all over the country (he gets the idea when he discovers that aspirin costs 18 cents at the chain drugstores but 25 cents at the Mom-and-Pop's. He needed them because his chiselling wife just divorced him because the money from shows dried up). This economy of scale persuades the two producers who had been putting on his shows until they switched to the movies to sign him up as a partner. The only trouble is that he has to keep coming up with prologue ideas and run a fantastically complicated system whereby he has seemingly dozens of traveling performers on the road at once and has to be constantly recruiting and training new ones. He is helped only by his super-efficient secretary and his long-suffering dance trainer, who keeps insisting that he can't do it, he's going to quit, because what he's being asked to do is impossible. There's also a rich relative of one of the producers (
Ruth Donnelly) who keeps insisting that they employ various distant relatives of hers, one of whom is Dick Powell, who turns out to have genuine talent, and who falls in love with then-secretary Ruby Keeler (weirdly, they both switch professions during the course of the movie - she from secretary to hoofer, and he in the reverse direction). Chester becomes more and more overworked and yet sees no reward, because his crooked partners are cooking the books to make it look like the profits are being sown back into production. There's also the problem that the rival prologue-making company keeps stealing Chester's ideas (his best one that we see is
a Cats forerunner) and then Chester's partners secure a deal with comical Greek theater-owner (all his theaters are named after Greek gods) Apolinaris, but only if they can put on three absolute show-stopping prologues, one after another at three different theaters, and in only 3 days time! Meanwhile Chester's actually-not-ex-wife shows up and demands $25,000! Joan Blondell takes it upon herself to confront the cheating partners about their cheating (she's heard rumors) and gets a check, whereupon Chester, realizing he's been cheated, quits. But of course he's got to do the shows! And after 3 days where everyone is locked in (so the rivals can't steal his ideas through their plant) they put on the most ridiculously over-the-top, patently impossible, Busby Berkeley numbers. (And, as with
Gold Diggers, it is amazing how salacious he is able to be in a post-code era. An opium den! A whole number set in a "
honeymoon hotel" with the same little person actor from
Gold Diggers, again both playing an infant and also acting like he's got the libido of Benny Hill. A
massive swimming number (remember, this is supposed to be put on in a cinema, in the tiny bit of stage in front of the screen, so there is absolutely no attempt at realism here) of supposedly naked-except-for-strategically-placed-hair wood nymphs. And a
final show where Cagney gets to dance (because, just like with
Gold Diggers, the person who's supposed to be doing it chickens out) which consists of an American in China looking for his Shanghai Lil (an unfortunately made-up Keeler),
and smuggling her aboard his Navy ship disguised as a sailor. These shows are
amazing, but I sort of wish they'd been spaced out through the movie a bit more. However, they're not repetitive, because the first one is mostly a singing number, the second one a swimming number and the third focuses on dancing (as well as a huge brawl!) But wait, you ask, does Joan Blondell get her guy? Well after disposing of a rival
of course she does! Here, enjoy
her best bits from the film. But really, you should watch
the whole thing - I guarantee you will not regret it.
No comments:
Post a Comment