Gold Diggers of 1933

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Gold Diggers of 1933
Theatrical release poster
Starring	Warren William Joan Blondell Aline MacMahon Ruby Keeler Dick Powell
Directed by	Mervyn LeRoy Busby Berkeley (musical sequences)
Produced by	Robert Lord Jack L. Warner
Written by	Screenplay: Erwin S. Gelsey James Seymour Dialogue: Ben Markson David Boehm
Editing by	George Amy
Studio	Warner Bros.
Based on	the 1919 play The Gold Diggers by Avery Hopwood
Music by	Harry Warren (music) Al Dubin (lyrics)
Cinematography	Sol Polito
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Released	May 27, 1933 in US
Runtime	90 or 96 minutes
Country	United States
language	English
Budget	$433,000
Gross	$3,231,000 (worldwide rentals)

Gold Diggers of 1933 is an American pre-Code musical film directed by Mervyn LeRoy with songs by Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics). The film's numbers were staged and choreographed by Busby Berkeley. It starred Warren William, Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon, Ruby Keeler, and Dick Powell. It featured appearances by Guy Kibbee, Ned Sparks and Ginger Rogers.

The story is based on the play The Gold Diggers by Avery Hopwood, which had its Broadway run for 717 performances in 1919 and 1920. The play was adapted into a silent film in 1923 by David Belasco, the producer of the Broadway play, as The Gold Diggers, starring Hope Hampton and Wyndham Standing, and again as a talkie in 1929, directed by Roy Del Ruth. That film, Gold Diggers of Broadway, which starred Nancy Welford and Conway Tearle, was one of the biggest box-office hits of that year.

Gold Diggers of 1933 was one of the top-grossing films of 1933. This version of Hopwood's play was written by James Seymour and Erwin S. Gelsey, with additional dialogue by David Boehm and Ben Markson.

In 2003, the Library of Congress selected "Gold Diggers of 1933" for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Plot

The "gold diggers" are four aspiring actresses: Polly (Ruby Keeler), an ingenue; Carol (Joan Blondell), a torch singer; Trixie (Aline MacMahon), a comedian; and Fay (Ginger Rogers), a glamour puss.

The film was made in 1933, during the Great Depression, and contains numerous direct references to it. It begins with a rehearsal for a stage show, which is interrupted by the producer's creditors who close down the show because of unpaid bills.

At the unglamorous apartment shared by three of the four actresses (Polly, Carol, and Trixie), the producer, Barney Hopkins (Ned Sparks), is in despair because he has everything he needs to put on a show except money. He hears Brad Roberts (Dick Powell), the girls' neighbor and Polly's boyfriend, playing the piano. Brad is a brilliant songwriter and singer who not only has written the music for a show but also offers Hopkins $15,000 in cash to back the production. Of course, they all think he is kidding, but he insists that he is serious – he offers to back the show but refuses to perform in it despite his talent and voice.

Brad comes through with the money and the show goes into production, but the girls are suspicious that he must be a criminal since he is cagey about his past and will not appear in the show, even though he is clearly more talented than the aging juvenile lead (Clarence Nordstrom) they have hired. It turns out, however, that Brad is, in fact, a millionaire's son whose family does not want him associating with the theatre. On opening night, in order to save the show when the juvenile cannot perform (due to his lumbago acting up), Brad is forced to play the lead role.

With the resulting publicity, Brad's brother J. Lawrence Bradford (Warren William) and family lawyer Faneuil H. Peabody (Guy Kibbee) discover what he is doing and go to New York to save him from being seduced by a "gold digger".

Lawrence mistakenly identifies Carol as Polly, and his heavy-handed effort to dissuade the "cheap and vulgar" showgirl from marrying Brad by buying her off annoys her so much that Carol plays along, but the two fall in love. Meanwhile, Trixie targets "Fanny" Peabody, the lawyer, as the perfect rich sap ripe for exploitation. When Lawrence finds out that Brad and the real Polly have wed, he threatens to have the marriage annulled but relents when Carol refuses to marry him if he does. Trixie marries Faneuil. All the "gold diggers" end up with wealthy men.

Musical numbers

We're in the Money

The film contains four song and dance sequences designed, staged and choreographed by Busby Berkeley. All the songs were written by Harry Warren and Al Dubin. (In the film, when producer Barney Hopkins hears Brad's music he picks up the phone and says: "Cancel my contract with Warren and Dubin!")

"We're in the Money" is sung by Ginger Rogers accompanied by scantily-clad showgirls dancing with giant coins. Rogers sings one verse in Pig Latin. During filming, Berkeley overheard Rogers speaking in Pig Latin, and immediately decided to add a Pig Latin verse to the song.

Pre-code door panel used to promote the film

"Pettin' in the Park" is sung by Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell. It includes a tap dance from Keeler and a surreal sequence featuring dwarf actor Billy Barty as a baby who escapes from his stroller. During the number, the women get caught in a rainstorm and go behind a backlit screen to remove their wet clothes in silhouette. They emerge in metal garments, which thwart the men's attempts to remove them, until Billy Barty gives Dick Powell a can opener. This number was originally planned to end the film.

..The Shadow Waltz

"The Shadow Waltz" is sung by Powell and Keeler. It features a dance by Keeler, Rogers, and many female violinists with neon-tubed violins that glow in the dark. Berkeley got the idea for this number from a vaudeville act he once saw – the neon on the violins was an afterthought. On March 10, the Long Beach earthquake hit while this number was being filmed:

[it] caused a blackout and short-circuited some of the dancing violins. Berkeley was almost thrown from the camera boom, dangling by one hand until he could pull himself back up. He yelled for the girls, many of whom were on a 30-foot (9.1 m)-high platform, to sit down until technicians could get the soundstage doors open and let in some light.

"Remember My Forgotten Man" is performed by Joan Blondell, with a featured vocal solo by Etta Moten – who also dubbed Blondell's singing voice at the end of the number – and features sets influenced by German Expressionism and a gritty evocation of Depression-era poverty. Berkeley was inspired by the May 1932 war veterans' march on Washington, D.C., and FDR's speech about the "Forgotten Man" from the same year. When the number was finished, Jack L. Warner and Darryl F. Zanuck (the studio production head) were so impressed that they ordered it moved to the end of the film, displacing "Pettin' in the Park".

An additional production number was filmed but cut before release: "I've Got to Sing a Torch Song" was to have been sung by Ginger Rogers, but instead appears in the film sung by Dick Powell near the beginning.

Circumventing censorship with alternate footage

According to Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood by Mark A. Vieira, Gold Diggers of 1933 was one of the first American films made and distributed with alternative footage in order to circumvent state censorship problems. Busby Berkeley, the choreographer and director of the musical numbers, used the lavish production numbers as a showcase of the female anatomy that were both "lyrical and lewd". "Pettin' in the Park" and "We're in the Money" are prime examples of this. The state censorship boards had become so troublesome that a number of studios began filming slightly different versions of censorable scenes. In this way, when a film was edited, the "toned down" reels were labeled according to district. One version could be sent to New York City, another to the South, and another to the United Kingdom.

Vieira reports that the film had two different endings: in one, the rocky romance between Warren William and Joan Blondell – whom he calls "cheap and vulgar" – is resolved backstage after the "Forgotten Man" number. In an alternative ending, this scene never takes place and the film ends with the number.

More information is available at [ Wikipedia:Gold_Diggers_of_1933 ]

External links

• Gold Diggers of 1933 at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Review Gold Diggers of 1933   at the Internet Movie Database
• Review Gold Diggers of 1933 at the Turner Classic Movie Database
• Gold Diggers of 1933 at All Movie Guide
• Rotten Tomatoes review

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