Dames

No one who lived through the Great Depression could possibly take seriously negative comments on the quality and content this film written by youngsters with no sense of its historical context. To lament its silliness or find fault with what seem now to be crude mechanical cinematographic devices just begs the question.

This movie could not be recreated in the twenty-first century even in the smallest part. In the first place, musicals are now passé. The drag parody of the title number "Dames" in 1988's film Torch Song Trilogy is proof of that. Moreover, its stock characters (Hugh Herbert, Guy Kibbee, Zasu Pitts) were simply reprising common comedic roles of the day, completely unsuited to the harsher and more cynical models now in vogue. And Ruby Keeler's numbers lack totally the athleticism of our contemporary dancers.

What we can appreciate about the movie is how it fits nicely into the Busby Berkeley oeuvre. After his huge successes of 1933, this example is a fitting continuation to his development as a moviemaker. The catastrophic effects of the Great Depression like mass unemployment, hunger, wholesale uprooting of communities, and abject poverty affecting the lives of millions of ordinary Americans could be forgotten for a few pennies spent in the local movie house. It played to the needs of its time.

Interestingly, the packaging of female pulchritude in the film also fits with that time. What today seems borderline pornographic or insulting to women was accepted without much fuss in 1934. Indeed, any student of Freud could have a field day deconstructing some of the Berkeley images.

As to the music, it is simply classic. Dick Powell's phrasing is a model of tenor sensibility in an age of Big Band baritones. One has to accept that continuity or theatrical presentation is not a factor. Each number stands or falls entirely on its own as seen through the lens of the camera. As an early prototype of the Hollywood musical, Dames was and is a smash hit.

...from Warner Brothers and directors Ray Enright and Busby Berkeley. Ultra-wealthy Ezra Ounce (Hugh Herbert) promises to bequeath $10 million to his relatives Horace (Guy Kibbee), Mathilda (Zasu Pitts), and Barbara (Ruby Keeler), as long as they live a "just and moral life", which includes no show business. Barbara's boyfriend and distant cousin Jimmy (Dick Powell) wants to put on a big musical show, and he teams with brassy showgirl Mabel (Joan Blondell) to make it happen, even if Ezra won't approve.

The story is silly, the characters are one-dimensional, and it takes a long time to get to the musical numbers. The song "I Only Have Eyes for You" has become a true standard, although the dance number here features chorus girls wearing Ruby Keeler masks and it gets kind of disquieting. Blondell has an oddball number singing to men's underwear, while the title number features a smirking Powell espousing the virtues of dames. This wasn't bad, and probably lots of the deficiencies were caused by the production code, which began to be enforced just a month before this film was released.

A wonderful musical comedy, fitting in well with 42nd Street, Golddiggers of 1933, Footlight Parade, and Golddiggers of 1935. Of the five, I would place this one tied for second, behind Golddiggers of 1933, equal to Footlight Parade, and just a hair better than 42nd Street. If you have seen none of them it would be good to start with this one. Then I would go to 42nd Street, Footlight Parade, saving the masterpiece Golddiggers of 33 for last. (Golddiggers of 1935 is quite a bit inferior.)

The first strong point is the excellent comedic plot, better than that in 42nd Street, about the same as Footlght Parade. Guy Kibbe is wonderful as always, Hugh Herbert and Zasu Pitts are great. The three of them really steal the show, at least as far as acting and plot go. The jokes come quickly and can easily be missed. I would hazard a guess that some viewers will no longer get the joke in the name of Hugh Herbert's character, "Ezra Ounce."

Joan Blondell is gorgeous and smart as always. Dick Powell is the same as in all the movies - which is absolutely fine! I love his voice.

I find Ruby Keeler a delight to look at and watch. It's true, as others have commented, that she really doesn't do a heck of a lot in this one, though she is on screen quite a lot. Some people seem to love to put down her acting or dancing. OK, so she's not going to star in King Lear or Antigone. So what? Get over it! That's not the point. She is very appealing. Similarly, I like seeing her dance. She doesn't have to be as good as Cyd Charisse. Get over it!

The real appeal of all five of the movies I've mentioned here, and the real star, is Busby Berkeley. It is amazing to read one or two of the reviews written here in the last decade by people who, I suppose, are rather young and set in their ways. How anyone with half a brain can watch this movie and not be absolutely blown away is unbelievable to me. Truly, such a person is blind. Maybe not in the sense of passing the eye test for a driver's license, but blind nonetheless. Surely Busby Berkeley was the most unexpected creative genius in the history of film.

Let me echo something another poster has written. Though I was born long after the great depression ended, it was still a living reality in the minds of my parents, and something I absorbed somehow when growing up. Maybe a byproduct of the difficult economic times we are living through now will be a greater sensitivity on the part of some people to those times and the culture produced in those times. It does seem that some of the negative reviewers here need to broaden and deepen their appreciation, not just of movies, but of humanity.

But I digress. This is a wonderful, fun, eye-popping movie, full of great songs and fantastic choreography. Enjoy.

• henry

Advertised by Warners as Gold Diggers for '34, it's another film in that backstage cycle that traces the efforts of youth restless with creativity to seduce with love cynical hearts hardened by money and rigid morals. It is again a film about the makings of a show, the show we're meant to be watching.

So very much in line with Gold Diggers '33 and Footlight Parade, except a little less wondrous this time, a little less seductive in all the circumstances surrounding the stage, the burlesque of trials and tribulations in fighting to stage a vision.

But it is again Busby Berkeley who is staging the vision that we have come to see. So once more an astonishing panorama of Hollywood dazzle, but with all the frill and gaudiness of the musical working beneath the dazzle to address the circumstances of its making; so we have a number where a woman romances empty shirts on a hangwire but which are animated by invisible strings from above, implying the fates that seem to be in control, another number with the author of the whole thing singing about the face that inspired the vision with the ardor of love, and the final number addressing us from our position as viewers. Of course we have come to be seduced by the dames, nothing else mattered.

The show is so intoxicating that those cynical hearts watching from the balcony are completely soused by the end of it!

So what was from the outset seemingly controlled by the fates, by a woman chancing to sleep on the wrong bed in a train compartment, is gradually revealed to have been shaped all this time around a center with clearly reflected purpose; the author's effort to announce his passion for music and this woman he sings about, and so approach within his art the face behind the cardboard image of social appearances, as the middle number reveals.

As with the other films in this cycle, even if a little less accomplished, it is overall more than potent stuff on the ardor of a loving heart to transform anxieties of a chaotic modern life that we also know into a pattern that seduces love out of both participants and viewers.

It is enjoyable to watch, brisk with dance, the disposition dreamy, but with the small hint of a shadow at the heart of this dream. The choreography maps to the contours of that internal heart wishing to beat truthfully.

Busby fans have to wait until the last part for their guy to do his stuff. But then it's a real eye-popper. The dames keep comin' at yah one after another, blondes, brunettes, and in- betweens. What a line-up of 30's cuties. Then there's Berkeley's trademark: feminine geometry. That's enough to give Freud analytic overload and others x-rated dreams. Good thing those fluid figures were too abstract for the censors to erase. Speaking of blue- noses, '34 was the first year of Code enforcement. So, wouldn't be surprised the plot was jabbing at our watchdogs of public morality. After all, ridding the city of stage shows is the millionaire's (Hugh Herbert) favorite hobby. It's a winning cast, even if Powell mugs it up faster than a Ferrari's RPM's. True, Keeler's hoofing may be on the clunky side, still she's got the sweetest smile this side of Hollywood and Vine. Too bad the real dame, Blondell, was hobbled by six months of motherly gestation. Working her camera angles must have been a real challenge. I know a lot of folks don't especially like these antique concoctions. But in my book, they're inspired combinations of artistry, pizazz, and sheer Hollywood hokum.