January 8 movie: Gold Diggers of 1933. Hey kids, let's put on a show! This movie has it all: great fashions, a dash of pre-code raciness, a completely twisted plot, and amazing Busby Berkeley dance numbers. The movie starts with Ginger Rogers wearing a bikini top made of pennies, and a giant penny covering her dainty bits, and singing "We're In the Money" in pig latin. And it just gets better from there.
The "In the Shadows" number must be seen to be believed. When the glowing neon violins come out, Georg was like, "Paging Laurie Anderson, call your office!" Seriously, I wonder if Anderson had seen this. It may be the best Busby Berkeley number I've ever seen. And I found it on Youtube so you can see it too! It's been edited a bit at the beginning, but the Busby Berkeley madness seems to be intact. Instead of the original song by Dick Powell, the Youtube version has the song "Possibly Maybe" by Bjork, which is a strangely good fit.
The last number, "Forgotten Man," isn't as sublime as "In the Shadows," but it was equally amazing for being so novel: a big Hollywood musical number about the Depression, featuring not rows of dancing girls in chiffon, but rows of "forgotten men" (bums) on breadlines. Apparently the dance number references a 1932 incident where WWI veterans demonstrated in DC and were attacked by the National Guard. I swear, I'd never seen anything like it.
Georg and I were talking about the odd fact that within the movie, these Busby Berkeley musical numbers are always supposed to be taking place on Broadway. But the numbers would never work on stage. They're all about overhead views and swooping crane shots that would be impossible for a theater audience to see. Plus the occasional special effects like split screens.
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