Truly Dreadful Film

Overrated

Good concept, poorly executed.

In truth, any opportunity to see the film on the big screen is welcome.

I loved this film. Not only because Gloria Stewart was in it, whiched helped me love it even further, but the music numbers were amazing and had good humor and a good story. The only thing I could say was wrong was that the wonderful Ruby Keeler wasn't also in the film, but Gloria Stewart is also wonderful. I guess Dick Powell can only have one love interest at a time. The story was very good with a good cast working at a fancy resort. Powell meets Gloria and her severely penny pinching mother Alice Brady, who gives 5 bellhops one quarter between all of them. That today would be like $3 split between five people, or a 60 or 70 cent tip for each bellhop, and remember the supervisors wanted a piece of the tips too. Not good pay. That for carrying up her royal heiness's mass luggage (that line I said there, sort of a "Spaceballs" reference). Alice initially trusts Powell to escort Gloria to the department store. Powell and Gloria then go on a shopping spree, along to the tune "I'm going shopping with you" and run up a bill much bigger than they were supposed to, which causes Alice to faint. She's realized now Powell and Gloria developed a romantic interest in each other, and that is not what Alice wanted. All good films need someone though who's not sweet and nice (as long as it's not the heroine) so the film doesn't get saccharine, and Alice was it here. I liked Alice's raging "did I hear you say.. Honeymoon!!?". She reminded me of Cruella the way she said that. Gloria's flamboyant brother Frank Farrell (well remembered as the whiny "it just can't be done!" assistant director in "Footlight parade") is back here a little more mellowed out and a lot more flamboyant, but still makes it obvious he's girl crazy. His "flutter flutter" scene was amusing after his successful date with beauty Glenda Farrel. Eccentric yet theatrically talented Adolphe Menjou joins the hotel too. He was not my favorite character in this film but he was not as annoying as some of the dramatic characters in Busby's slump period films (such as the annoying band players and French ballet teacher in the not so good "Gold diggers in Paris"). Gloria and the two musical numbers in this film were so amazing and beautiful, which played a big help in making this film better than Busby's 3 slump films "Hollywood hotel", "Varsity show", and "Gold diggers Paris". Gloria and Powell have a very nice passionate romantic scene on a boat on a lake. The best, most wonderful part comes soon next in the delightful and amazing song "The words are in my heart". 15-20 beautiful girls on shiny white grand pianos sliding around and forming more great Busby patterns and shapes while the girls play the beautiful music. Some of the piano patterned shapes were taken from the "By a waterfall" number in "Footlight parade" such as the snake patterns and the swirl patterns, where then it was the swimming girls, and here it's the girls on the pianos. The pattern work though was fabulous, and the guys under those pianos being able to move them around so smoothly and timely like that could not have been any easy task. Even the girls' dancing by the pianos was very nice in the shadowy half dark with the shining light from the big open doorway behind them which created a eerie beauty of its own. Then the piano sections were bookended by three beauties playing a piano in a nice living room in beautiful floor length dresses before climbing the stairs at the end. Then, a model on the piano (zooming in at the end, zooming out at the beginning ) at closer view being a pretty spot by a pond under a blossom tree with Powell and the gorgeous Gloria sitting under it in her beautiful very large ruffled dress, Powell singing to Gloria, Gloria looking like an angel, which completes the wonderful golden bookends to this amazing number. The other fabulous umber, "Lullaby of Broadway " tells an exciting tale of a girl's day in the city through song and dance. Then a spoiler near the end of the number I won't reveal above the "Spoiler below" section below which makes the number even greater and tear jerking. SPOILER BELOW"Lullaby of Broadway" was fabulous due to the girl, the story, and about 100 or more very talented dancers in a big hall tap dancing so well and in such complete unison. I loved that sound of so many shoes tapping together in such skilled patterns along with some amazing dance moves. Dick Powell and the beautiful Lullaby girl watched, then danced with all of the others wonderfully, until near the end when the number has a big climatic fall (literally). What makes the "Lullaby of Broadway" number even more amazing and tugging at the heart strings was the moment after the climax where we get what started to look like an "it was all a dream" session, but just then surprises us. I loved it. Overall, this film's fantastic.

. . . to rivet America's attention on how worthless the country's Richest One Per Cent are to the rest of us. While rival outfits such as MGM tried to fill American minds with fantasies such as the WIZARD OF OZ and GONE WITH THE WIND, Warner kept crashing to the forefront of the Public's consciousness with their gritty exposes, such as director William A. Wellman's HEROES FOR SALE or choreographer/director Busby Berkeley's numerous extravaganzas, including GOLD DIGGERS OF 1935. Though Warner was infamously frugal (this flick is filmed in black and white, after all), Busby was an expert on making a C-note look like a million bucks on-screen. GD35 culminates with one of those phony baloney "charity" functions, in which the One Per Cent make sure that 99% of the money "raised" is frittered away on pointless excess for their own wicked amusement. This show-within-the-movie (for a "Milk Fund") begins with what appear to be 88 white-gowned female concert pianists plunking away at 88 Steinway grand pianos frivolously ruined with milk-white paint jobs. Act Two shows former WWI drill Sgt. Berkeley's true stripes. Flypaper heiress Ann Prentiss at first is in a milky-white garbed audience of two, watching 198 frenetic tap dancers sweating for her pleasure on a cavernous stage. But then Berkeley concludes this piece by having normal people shove One Per Center Ann out of a high-rise window! Warner is doing all it can short of spelling out on the screen "Rise up, you pawns!" to keep America a free country (as opposed to the MGM-style Bread & Circus Show it is today).

Seventy-three years have elapsed since this Gold Diggers movie was released, and it is well worth remembering that for many Americans The Great Depression was still fairly well depressing. Two years into the first administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the overall level of unemployment was dropping, but entirely too many people were what we would now call "underemployed." They were working -- like the hotel staff in the fictional resort where all of the events in this movie occur -- "for tips." Not only that, they were required to pay their managers 'a tithe' of whatever they collected. All of that is laid out in the first sequences of this incredible film.In a very real way, this movie was an employment bonanza all its own.The extraordinary dancing sequences in "Lullaby Of Broadway" clearly required about a hundred dancers and the musicians: this means that there were also dozens of supporting personnel required for the task of doing rehearsals ( including musicians ). Perhaps it wasn't the best pay-day for most of these people but it was a pay-day in Hollywood.Busby Berkeley has received many accolades for his work in 42nd Street, which is quite possibly one of the greatest American films ever made. But the energy and style and the enthusiasm which is on display in the dancing routines for "Lullaby" was not faked. Maybe this movie has all the intellectual 'nutrients' of cotton candy and maybe that's a valid criticism, but it was work and honest work at that. This is a greatly entertaining film built out of the flimsiest of dramatic components, yet one thing remains true, it's a hell of an entertaining ride.The comedic elements were clearly drawn comic-book style, and I do not find that objectionable in the least, for the goofiness of the lead comic actors is still charming all these decades later. OK, it is true that many millions of modern film fans may not have the slightest idea what 'snuff' is -- finely powdered tobacco -- but funny is funny, and the obsession of the screwball expert who is collecting them is still really funny !! If it wasn't funny, then why are 'nerds' still getting laughs in movies today ?? It's the same basic kind of humor.The rating of 8 for this film does take into account the tissue-thin plot for this second "Gold Diggers" episode, but it remains one of my personal favorites and that is said after having given it several viewings. Look back on this as an historical document. See how people behaved before being constantly tethered to their cell phones, before being obsessed with 'global warming' or the price of gasoline.Oh, and Gloria Stuart is so incredibly beautiful that she stops the action in almost every scene she's in, as does Wini Shaw's singing.A great film for a cozy Saturday night, and it is also certified as being 100 % zombie-free.

Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Boy (Dick Powell) meets girl (Gloria Stuart) story is the backdrop of big musical numbers in this Busby Berkeley directed film. The two leads are wonderful and have some great chemistry and even a couple of the musical numbers are good but these come at the very end. The story is just so underwritten that it's hard to find much entertainment out of this thing. The film isn't really bad but it's not really good either. We've got better romantic comedies from this period and better musicals from this period so this is only recommended for fans of the stars.