Gold Diggers of 1933

Mervyn LeRoy, USA 1933, 94 minutes

In the interwar years, film was at an alltime high. Cinema attendances, and the number of films being produced were huge. Thousands flocked to Hollywood to make their dreams come alive - the chance of stardom was a heady drug. Meanwhile, the boundaries of film were being explored and pushed back, encouraged by studios who saw the wireless radio as a real threat. Many existing forms of entertainment were referred to for ideas, including popular theatre and Broadway. The grand Broadway style musicals were seen as a guaranteed return on investment, and none came grander than those made by MGM, and none made them grander, than Busby Berkeley. Gold Diggers of 1933 is one of his, and one of the classics from a certain era of cinema, with Busby's hallmark style shining through.

Berkeley was a choreographer who did not just choreograph the dancing, but also the cameras and the audiences, in a host of grand, outlandish musicals. His sweeping, novel style was his hallmark, with the fine set pieces in Gold Diggers of 1933 a fine example. Many early film musicals were simply filmed versions of the theatre productions, and while Gold Diggers is plainly staged, Busby always experimented with unusual camera angles and editing to liven up the proceedings. The films tried to go one better than the stage musicals by going one bigger, with huge set pieces and opulent surroundings.

This was where many who arrived in Hollywood seeking stardom found their dream. The set pieces of many a Berkeley musical would call for a cast of hundreds of dancing girls in a kaleidoscopic, co-ordinated extravaganza. Gold Diggers of 1933 has some of the most outlandish of these, as does one of the later remakes, Gold Diggers of 1935 (not to mention Gold Diggers of 1937).

The story that the set pieces are hung around are a multitude of romances between a well-atheel family circle and the showgirls who come to town, involving many of the stars of the era, including Dick Powell as the aspiring songwriter and Ruby Keeler as his dame, Guy Kibbee, Warren William, Ned Sparks and Ginger Rogers in an early role. Will the show go on? Who will be with whom? Who knows!

Gold Diggers of 1933 is a classic example of a film style that cinema left behind, and that can be looked back at with interest. Made to lift the Depression-era spirits, and to show just what that loin was roaring about, this is the sort of film that doesn't get made any more, that can't get made any more.

Review by Scott M Keir
Taken from EUFS Programme 1997-98