Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

Gold Diggers of 1933 is one of the great Warner Brothers pre-code musicals with wild Busby Berkeley production numbers.

The plot is your standard Warner Brothers pre-code backstage musical plot. Producer Barney Hopkins (Ned Sparks) is putting on a show or at least he’s trying to. But this is the Depression and the money needed to finance a show is simply impossible to find. The show closes before it even opens.

Polly Parker (Ruby Keeler), Fay Fortune (Ginger Rogers), Carol King (Joan Blondell) and Trixie Lorraine (Aline MacMahon) are broke again. They’re in utter despair until Barney announces that he has a new show ready to go. But as usual, he has everything he needs except the money.

The girls’ neighbour, Brad (Dick Powell), then offers to finance the show. Since he’s a penniless aspiring songwriter nobody takes him seriously. But somehow he comes up with the money.

Barney wants Brad to be the juvenile lead but Brad tells him that it is simply not possible for him to perform in public.

Then we get the classic Warner Brothers backstage musical scene. The juvenile lead cannot go on. The show is doomed. The only hope is for Brad to go on.

Brad and Polly have already fallen hopelessly in love. They decide to get married.

Things get complicated when Brad’s real identity is revealed and his brother J. Lawrence Bradford (Warren William) arrives on the scene intent on preventing the marriage.

We then get plenty of farce with identities getting mixed up and the girls cooking up a plot to make sure that true love triumphs.

Warren William was always at his best when he could be really slimy and oily. In this movie he’s basically not such a bad guy, which may disappoint some of his fans.

Aline MacMahon is the out-and-out comic character and overdoes things a bit. Guy Kibbee is fun (as always) as J. Lawrence Bradford’s lawyer who has a weakness for the ladies. Ned Sparks is terrific. Ruby Keeler is as sweet as ever but she could get away with being sweet. Joan Blondell and Ginger Rogers are excellent.

What I love about these Busby Berkeley musicals is that they have theatrical settings and the musical production numbers are supposedly taking place on stage. But these numbers could never be accommodated on a stage and they could never be watched on stage since they can only be appreciated when viewed through the camera’s eye. As soon as the musical production numbers start we are teleported from the world of the theatre into a world of pure cinema.

These are also production numbers that could only work in black-and-white. They need the artificiality of black-and-white. We are in a world of total artifice.

They would also look terribly crass in colour. This is a kind of glamour that only great black-and-white cinematography can provide.

Barney’s show is intended as a show about the Depression and Gold Diggers of 1933 is a movie about the Depression. It’s at its best in the early stages when we see Barney and the showgirls refusing to admit defeat. They’re show people and regardless of the obstacles they’re going to put on a show.

For many people the highlight is the Forgotten Man production number at the end. For me this number goes close to ruining the movie. It’s typical heavy-handed Warner Brothers “social commentary” and it’s like a political lecture clumsily tacked on at the end. These Warner Brother musicals work because they take us into a magical world of pure cinematic fantasy. The Forgotten Man number is out of place and a movie that should end on a playful joyful note ends in misery and whining.

As a result Gold Diggers of 1933 is the weakest of the Warner Brothers pre-code musicals but it does include three terrific production numbers. The Shadow Waltz is visually impressive. Pettin' in the Park is fabulous and inspired pre-code cheerful naughtiness. We're in the Money opens the movie and it’s the movie’s high point and it’s a great showcase for Ginger Rogers.

If you’re a Busby Berkeley newbie start with 42nd Street or Footlight Parade which are much better movies than this. Gold Diggers of 1933 has a few great moments but it doesn’t quite make it.

It’s annoying that this movie is available on Blu-Ray while the vastly superior Footlight Parade is not.

The Crowd Roars (1932)

The Crowd Roars is a 1932 Warner Brothers pre-code race-car melodrama directed by Howard Hawks and based on a story idea by Hawks.

If you have any familiarity with the movies of Howard Hawks then you know that he was fascinated by stories about men who put their lives in peril. In particular he was fascinated by men who do this not from a sense of duty (as would be the case with military service) but out of a psychological need to dice with death. Hawks made some of his very finest movies on this theme.

This movie fits that profile exactly.

The Crowd Roars is also a movie about the uneasy dynamics that develop when a woman enters this male world. Again, very Hawksian.

Joe Greer (James Cagney) is a very successful racing car driver. On a trip back to his home town he discovers that his kid brother Eddie (Eric Linden) has decided to follow in his big brother’s footsteps and has taken up race-car driving. Joe is initially not very happy about the idea but relents and soon Eddie is part of Joe’s racing team.

Joe has a girlfriend, Lee (Ann Dvorak). It’s obvious Lee would like to get married. There’s some tension between them. Lee thinks Joe is ashamed of her. Joe is certainly anxious to stop Eddie from finding out that there’s anything serious going on with Lee. It’s made fairly obvious that Joe and Lee have been living together (this is a pre-code movie) and Joe doesn’t want Eddie of any of the family finding out. Lee is also worried about Joe’s drinking.

Another complication is that Eddie gets involved with Anne, and that really angers Joe.

Lee’s best friend is Anne Scott (Joan Blondell). This might lead you to believe that this is yet another movie in which Blondell has merely a supporting role as the heroine’s pal. That’s not the case here. Blondell shares top billing with Cagney and she is certainly not a mere supporting player. The four main characters - Joe, Eddie, Lee and Anne - are all equally important although obviously Cagney and Blondell have the edge when it comes to star quality.

This is an exciting race-car action film with some thrilling racing footage. There are complex romantic dramas as well, with real people often driven by conflicting emotions.

It’s also the story of a man struggling with his personal demons. Joe is a difficult troubled man. He’s not a sympathetic character in a straightforward way. He’s quick-tempered. He has a bit of a nasty streak at times. He treats Lee badly. He’s stubborn and he’s obsessive when he gets an idea into his head. And something is about to happen that will add self-pity to the volatile mix.

Joe treats Eddie like a small child. He treats both Lee and Anne very badly. He and Lee are obviously sleeping together. That seems to be why he won’t marry her. You don’t marry girls with such loose morals. He really is ashamed of her. This is all monstrously unreasonable. But that’s the crux of the plot. Joe really isn’t a very nice guy. The question is whether he can learn to be a more decent human being before his behaviour leads to disaster. He is a very flawed hero indeed, but that’s what makes him interesting. We know he needs to change and we hope that he will.

Cagney relishes the opportunity to play a man at war with himself and he does a fine job. Blondell and Dvorak play women with a bit of depth as well. It has to be said that Eric Linden is rather colourless as Eddie. Frank McHugh is amusing and likeable as Joe’s driving team-mate and buddy Spud Connors.

It’s easy to overlook just how incredibly dangerous race-car driving was in the 1930s. Safety precautions were non-existent. Fatal crashes were commonplace. If your car caught fire your chances of survival were slim. That’s part of Joe’s problem. He has plenty of guts but he’s smart enough to understand the dangers, and he needs alcohol to face the risks. And of course alcohol increases the risks.

The racing sequences are impressive and manage took very dangerous. Filming them was indeed very dangerous.

This is all perfect material for Hawks and he makes the most of it.

Sadly this movie does not appear to survive in a complete form. The original running time was 85 minutes but existing prints come in at around 70 minutes.

The Crowd Roars is a grown-up action movie with some real depth. It’s an excellent and underrated Howard Hawks and it’s highly recommended.

The Warner Archive DVD release provides a pretty decent transfer.

I’ve reviewed Ceiling Zero (1936) and Only Angels Have Wings (1939), two other great Howard Hawks movies about men who choose to dice with death.

My Past (1931)

My Past is a 1931 Warner Brothers pre-code romantic melodrama.

John Thornley (Lewis Stone) is a wealthy middle-aged industrialist. He leaves the running of the business to his much younger workaholic partner, Bob Byrne (Ben Lyon). John prefers to spend his time lazing about on his yacht and chasing actresses.

For six years he’s been chasing musical comedy star Doree Macy (Bebe Daniels). He thinks that eventually he’ll catch her.

Then Bob meets Doree and becomes smitten with her. He’s a married man but he assures her that his wife Consuelo (Natalie Moorhead) is in Paris getting a divorce. You’d think an actress would be worldly enough not to fall for the oldest line in the book, but she falls for it.

You won’t be surprised to learn that Bob’s wife had no intention of divorcing him.

So now there’s a kind of romantic quadrangle, with Bob and John both chasing Doree while Doree and Consuelo compete for Bob. That’s it for the plot.

I do have some issues with this movie, primarily relating to character motivations. I just don’t buy John’s pathetic self-sacrificing emotional masochism. I don’t buy the idea that he’d spend six years chasing Doree without getting anything in return. It doesn’t gel with his hedonistic outlook. After a few months he would simply start chasing another actress, but he doesn’t. It’s totally at odds with everything else we know about him. It doesn’t ring true. I have a problem with characters who do things that are wildly out of character just because the script says so. It’s a sign of lazy writing. In this case it also leads us to despise the man, which weakens the movie’s emotional impact.

I also just didn’t like the heroine. She’s believable, but she’s a heartless manipulative woman. If she’d been meant as a calculating vamp that would have been fine but I get the impression that we’re actually meant to like her.

Does it have a pre-code flavour? Up to a point it does. It’s fairly explicit about the fact that Bob and his wife have a sexless marriage. It certainly implies that Bob and Doree sleep together. It tries to be daring in treating adultery casually but at times it’s a bit too coy. It does let Doree off lightly for trying to steal another woman’s husband. It wants to be naughty, but it pulls its punches a bit.

There’s a slightly nasty vibe to this movie. The message seems to be that lying and manipulating will get you everything you want while if you behave honourably you’ll wind up with nothing. The only really decent character in the movie is the one who ends up getting it in the neck.

I’m all for pre-code openness and pre-code lack of moral judgments on characters for minor indiscretions but I’m a bit uncomfortable with a movie that lets a louse like Bob off so lightly.

The acting is mostly fine. It’s not the fault of the players that the characters are badly written.

Ben Lyon is dull. Lewis Stone is fun. Bebe Daniels is good. Joan Blondell once again finds herself playing the heroine’s best friend and once again she steals every scene she’s in.

Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels were married in real life which makes the total lack of onscreen chemistry between them rather puzzling.

My Past just didn’t work for me. The script is very weak. Doree and Bob are simply awful people that I didn’t care about. This might have worked if the movie had been played as a cynical comedy. My Past is not a terribly movie but it’s disappointing and it’s hard to recommend, even with Bebe Daniels and Joan Blondell in the cast.

The Warner Archive DVD is barebones as usual but it’s a nice transfer.

Millie (1931)

Millie is a 1931 RKO pre-code romantic melodrama with a fair leavening of wit and humour in the early stages. It covers seventeen years in a woman’s life.

Millie (Helen Twelvetrees) is a small town girl. She marries Jack Maitland because he seems like a nice guy, he has good prospects and she’s in love with him. They set off for the bright lights of New York.

Three years later the marriage is looking a bit rocky. They have a daughter, Connie. Millie is bored and lonely and she wonders if Jack still loves her. He just doesn’t seem very affectionate any more. He doesn’t even seem to want to kiss her.

Millie gets a call from an old friend she grew up with, Angie (Joan Blondell). Angie lives with her friend Helen (Lilyan Tashman). The three meet up for drinks at a ritzy bar and there Millie spots her husband Jack. Jack is with a cheap blonde. That’s it for Millie. She gets a divorce.

Millie decides she’ll have to get a job. Angie is deeply shocked. Getting a job is something she herself has never even contemplated. As long as there are men in the world why would a girl want to work?

In theory Angie and Helen are chorus girls. Judging by the expensive fashionable clothes they wear we assume they have other sources of income.

Millie gets a job at the cigar counter in a hotel. She meets reporter Tommy Rock (Robert Ames) and falls for him. Tommy wants to marry her but Millie has decided that she3’s tried marriage and it didn’t work. She wants her independence. She’s also being romanced by smooth-talking middle-aged playboy Jimmy Damier (John Halliday).

The movie keeps jumping forward, a few years at a time. Millie is doing well at her job and she’s been promoted.

Things are a bit rocky for her on the romance front. It doesn’t work out with Tommy. She gets involved with Jimmy, and with other men.

Jumping forward a few years later and Millie is still independent, she still has lots of men friends and her daughter Connie is now sixteen. And Connie is a worry. She’s a nice kid but naïve and vulnerable and she gets into a tricky situation with a man, Millie gets involved, there’s a gun involved and it ends in court. Which brings us to a big melodramatic finale.

This is the only Helen Twelvetrees movie I’ve ever seen. She’s vivacious and charming. She was fairly successful in the pre-code era but after that her career faded quickly. She died of a drug overdose at the age of 49.

Lilyan Tashman’s life was even more tragic. Three years after making Millie she was dead. She’s great fun in Millie.

Joan Blondell is of course wonderful. Early on she gets lots of racy dialogue and no-one could deliver risqué lines they way Joan Blondell could. She was never quite a top-rank star but she was able to sustain a successful acting career for half a century. She is never less than delightful in her pre-code movies.

This is definitely a very pre-code movie. Women don’t necessarily get punished for having sex, even if they’re not married. Millie is obviously living with Tommy out of wedlock for several years. She is obviously sleeping with Jimmy. She is obviously sleeping with plenty of other men. But all this is just taken for granted.

There are those who will try to tell you that Angie and Helen are lesbians. That’s wishful thinking. There is zero evidence in the movie to support this theory, and plenty of evidence to the contrary. There's also no evidence that Angie and Helen are prostitutes, although they have no objections to being kept by men.

This is definitely a movie that is critical of the rigidity of traditional sexual morality. Like a lot of pre-code movies it’s not necessarily arguing for the abandonment of traditional morality, but rather for that morality to be loosened up considerably and leavened with some humanity and flexibility. It treats sex as a normal part of life, even for unmarried women.

Millie is one of five pre-code movies in Kino Lorber’s RKO Classic Romances set, released on both DVD and Blu-Ray.

Millie is a fine example of the pre-code melodrama. Highly recommended.

I’ve Got Your Number (1934)

I don’t think it’s possible for a pre-code movie to be much more lightweight than I’ve Got Your Number, but it’s still not without its charms.

This 1934 Warner Brothers production is a comedy-drama centred around a telephone company. Terry Riley (Pat O’Brien) and Johnny (Allen Jenkins) are telephone repairmen-linesmen. For the first 20 minutes we just see an assortment of adventures that they get into, mostly involving Terry chatting up blondes. Then the main plot kicks in.

This central plot involves Marie (Joan Blondell). Marie is a switchboard operator at the Hotel Eden. Terry has been pursuing her for quite a while. Marie has another admirer, Nicky (Gordon Westcott). Marie is no fool - she knows Nicky is no good. But she doesn’t realise just how no good he is.



Nicky manages top cost Marie her job, but Terry rides to the rescue and gets her another job as switchboard operator and receptionist to wealthy investment banker John P. Schuyler (Henry O’Neill). Schuyler owes Terry a favour - Terry saved his life during a fire. Terry might be regarded with some suspicion by his supervisor Joe Flood (Eugene Pallette) but to the telephone company he’s a hero. And John P. Schuyler is not a man to forget a favour.

Unfortunately Nicky steps in again and soon Marie is facing not just losing her new job, but possibly being an accessory to grand larceny. She seems to be sunk, but Terry knows Marie would not have been involved in anything shady and he and Johnny are determined to save her.



The movie than becomes a sort of lighthearted crime thriller, but instead of having a cop or private detective as the hero it has a telephone repairman as the hero. Terry might not pack a rod but he does have an intimate knowledge of the telephone system and this know-how will help him to save Marie, although before he can do that he needs to be saved himself.

Luckily Joe Flood steps in at this point. He’s never had much time for Terry but when one of his repairmen is in trouble it’s a different story. Telephone company people stick together in a crisis. He rounds up the phone company boys and they go riding off to rescue Terry. And the bad guys find that a mob of irate phone company employees can be a formidable challenge even to a gang of criminals.



The mood is kept light throughout. Veteran director Ray Enright doesn’t let the pace flag and the fairly short 69-minute running time helps. The big pluses in this movie though are the players. Joan Blondell is of course wonderful as always. Allen Jenkins is one of my favourite character actors of this period, equally at home playing heavies or in light comedic roles. His performance is perfect for the mood of the movie. Pat O’Brien does well in a role that could easily have been irritating and he makes Terry a likeable if unlikely hero. Eugene Pallette is a delight as Terry’s boss.

There’s not much pre-code content here, apart from a few gay jokes that they might not have got away with after the Code.



This movie is presented as part of a one-disc two-movie pack in the Warner Archive series, paired with the equally entertaining Havana Widows. The transfers are both very good.

I’ve Got Your Number doesn’t try to do anything else but entertain, and it succeeds admirably. This set is really a must-have for any self-respecting pre-code fan. How can you possibly go wrong with two Joan Blondell movies? You can’t, so this one can certainly be recommended. It’s 1930s Hollywood light comedy at its best.

Blondie Johnson (1933)

Blondie Johnson is a First National Pictures pre-code offering with Joan Blondell as a lady gangster. Directed by the reliable Ray Enright, this movie came out in 1933.

It starts off with the sort of socially conscious bleeding heart nonsense you expect from the  studio, with a wicked landlord and an uncaring society driving the mother of Blondie Johnson (Blondell) to her death. So of course it’s not Blondie’s fault that she becomes a gangster.

Having got that silliness out of the way the movie settles down into an entertaining tale of a girl who claws her way to the top by using her brains rather than her body. Blondie is making a reasonable living as a con artist until she cons big-time gangster Danny Jones (Chester Morris). Danny takes an immediate liking to this fresh dame and figures she has a big career in crime ahead of her. His judgment turns out to be spectacularly correct.



Danny’s pal Louis (Allen Jenkins) is facing a murder rap. The big boss, Max Wagner, decides to let Louis take the fall. Blondie persuades Danny that that’s no way to treat a pal. If he won’t help Louis then he’s as yellow as Max. Danny is convinced, Louis beats the rap, and Danny becomes head of the organisation. Their specialty is the protection racket, to which they add some ingenious new twists. With Blondie providing the brains the organisation is soon thriving.

Danny is obviously sweet on Blondie. Blondie likes him but she wants to keep things on a business-like footing. That all changes when Danny gets married and decides to leave Blondie out in the cold. What he hadn’t counted on was that the boys are now loyal to Blondie, not to him. They knows she’s the brains behind the outfit, they know she always looks after a pal and they know she’ll never turn yellow. So Blondie becomes the big boss, and it’s Danny who’s left out in the cold.



Blondie’s tangled relationship with Danny is however still left unresolved and sooner or later she’s going to have to make a difficult choice.

Joan Blondell, so often relegated to playing the heroine’s best friend, relishes the opportunity to play the lead role. Blondie might be a gangster but she’s not without human feelings. As much as she tries to think of herself as a tough dame she’s still a woman and those feelings still get in the way. Blondell is superb - tough but still very likeable. Chester Morris is very good as well and the supporting players are excellent, especially Allen Jenkins. He’s one of my favourite character actors from this era. He always played essentially the same role, but he played it very well indeed. Sterling Holloway is amusing as a wry cab driver who helps Blondie when she’s starting her career as a con woman. Japanese-born Toshia Mori is great as Blondie’s glamorous pal Lulu.



Blondie Johnson isn’t really a hardboiled crime picture. The criminals are all nice people and the mood is generally fairly light-hearted although Blondell does get a few opportunities to show off her abilities as a serious actress. At 67 minutes this is a fast-paced fun ride.

Apart from a generally amoral tone there’s not a lot to distinguish this movie as a pre-code movie. The dialogue is however sharp and entertaining in typical 30s style.



The Warner Archive made-on-demand disc features a reasonably acceptable print.

Blondie Johnson is thoroughly enjoyable in undemanding viewing and is worth a look, especially for fans of Joan Blondell.

Blonde Crazy (1931)

Blonde Crazy is a good-natured and cheerfully immoral little 1931 Warner Brothers pe-code gem which pairs Jimmy Cagney and Joan Blondell as a couple of roguish but engaging grifters.

Bert (played by Cagney) is the bellboy at a moderately swank hotel in an anonymous small city. Anne (Blondell) is down on her luck, but he manages to get her a job as a maid. Bert dreams of being a big shot with lots of money, and he’s been working a few minor cons. Anne seems like the perfect partner, and pretty soon they’re pulling in reasonably big money. But Bert isn’t as clever as he thinks he is, and he finds himself the victim of a swindle. He and Anne manage to pull off another lucrative job and seem like they’re headed for the big time. Anne however was never really happy with the idea of making dishonest money, and when she meets a smarmy but outwardly respectable stock broker she decides to quit the grifting game and get married and settle down.

This throws Bert’s plans into disarray since he’s been crazy about Anne since the first time he set eyes on her. But fate has several unexpected twists in store for both of them.

Cagney is definitely not in tough guy mode in this movie. There’s lots of slapping, but he’s always the one getting slapped! By Blondell. She’s definitely a feisty kind of gal.

Cagney is basically a decent guy who just doesn’t see any honest way of making a decent living, and under a cynical exterior he’s really a hopeless romantic. His problem is that he’s used to getting by with wise-cracks, and he can’t stop the wise-cracks for long enough to admit he’s madly in love with Anne, and to tell her he loves her.

There’s an abundance of snappy and witty dialogue. There’s great chemistry between Cagney and Blondell, and both have the perfect comic timing to carry off a light-hearted if slightly naughty caper comedy like this. And they’re both so thoroughly likeable. Blondell so often ended up playing the heroine’s best friend, so it’s great to see her in such a rewarding leading role.

Blonde Crazy is charmingly amoral and there’s no shortage of sexual innuendo. There’s even a nude scene featuring Blondell which is pretty hot stuff by the standards of 1931.

This is a fast-paced and completely delightful movie, not to be taken at all seriously but simply to be enjoyed.

Sadly this movie doesn't appear to be available on DVD, although it was released on VHS.

Nightmare Alley (1947)

In the late 1940s Tyrone Power was trying desperately to move away from his matinee idol/swashbuckling hero image. Nightmare Alley in 1947 took him about as far from that image as possible. It’s the story of the rise and fall of a carnival mentalist who becomes a highly successful phoney spiritualist. It was based on an extraordinarily bleak and powerful novel by William Lindsay Gresham.

This was very much a personal project for Tyrone Power, who was a big enough star to get the picture made despite the opposition of Darryl F. Zanuck who thought it was far too bleak for 1947 American audiences. It turned out that Zanuck was right. Zanuck insisted on changing the ending (and very nearly ruined the movie and destroyed the whole point of the story with a contrived sentimental ending) but the movie was a box office disaster anyway.

Despite the terrible ending it’s still a powerful and extremely dark movie. The world of the carnival is based on cynical deception of the rubes, but the world outside the carnival is even more corrupt and people outside the carnival crowds are just as gullible as the rubes. The plot of the novel follows a beautifully planned out and executed ironic trajectory, which Zanuck managed to wreck almost entirely.

Tyrone Power’s performance is superb. His character, Stan Carlisle, is both an innocent and a corrupt cynical operator lacking entirely in moral scruples. Joan Blondell is magnificent as Zeena, a mentalist who teaches Stan the ropes. Blondell was always terrific at comedy but here she’s given the oppprtunity to shw her serious acting chops and she grabs that opportunity with both hands. Helen Walker is very good and rather unsettling as a psychologist who turns out to be even more corrupt than Stan.

The movie is totally noir in its visual style – this is one of the most impressive features of the film. The carnival background and the techniques of deception are explained in fascinating detail. The commentary track is by James Ursini and Alain Silver, noted writers on film noir. They make the claim that Stan’s psychic powers aren’t completely bogus, that he seems to have some real powers. I’m very sceptical of that claim. Stan obviously is very very good at reading people. They also make the claim that because Zeena’s tarot cards seem to tell the truth that the film is suggesting that some psychic powers are real. Again I disagree. Zeena is extremely perceptive, she understands people (that’s why she can con them so effectively) and to be honest you don’t need to have psychic powers to see where Stan is headed. Their points about Stan’s being unscrupulous but not really evil are more valid. He is an interesting and complex character – he will sacrifice people to get what he wants but he isn’t really malicious.

If you can ignore the last scene it’s a great movie. Just pretend the film ends (as it should have) with the line, “Mister, I was born for it.”