Footlight Parade (1933) + Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

UCLA Film & Television Archive at the Billy Wilder Theater, Westwood Village, Calif.

Tonight we saw two Busby Berkeley musicals, "Footlight Parade" and "Gold Diggers of 1933," at UCLA/Hammer's Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood. "Gold Diggers" starts and ends with some interesting numbers ("We're in the Money" and "Remember My Forgotten Man"), but "Footlight Parade," starring Jimmy Cagney, was overall more enjoyable. In both films, the song and dance numbers tend to go on for longer than my attention cares to span, but "Footlight" at least has the benefit of containing "By a Waterfall," a clip of which we had seen a couple of months ago at the grandiosely-named Museum of Theatrical Design in Santa Ana, as well as "Honeymoon Hotel," a Merrie Melodies version of which was also on the bill that night in Santa Ana. We'd enjoyed the cartoon version very much and the live action take was funny and sexy as well.

We were shushed by the morbidly obese lady next to us and I almost lost my cell phone during the intermission, but it was fun that everyone in the house applauded when the face of FDR appeared during the course of one of the numbers. The mostly elderly audience was also treated to the period musical stylings of Janet Klein and the Parlor Boys before the double-feature.