The Frame

Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Screenplay: David Boehm, Ben Markson, Erwin S. Gelsey, James Seymour
Producer: Robert Ward, Jack L. Warner
Starring: Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Joan Blondell, Warren William, Ginger Rogers
MPAA Rating: NR
Running time: 96min.

Yet even with its silliness, I still have a huge soft spot for Gold Diggers of 1933.

Originally posted at Row Three on 1 July 2009, as part of a double-review with 42nd Street, in a series on the 1930s.

[xrr rating=3.5/5]

Gold Diggers is both more explicit about and less infused with the Depression than 42nd Street. It begins with Ginger Rogers singing “We’re in the Money” (which includes lines like “Old Man Depression you are through, you done us wrong” and “we never see a headline about a breadline today”), but it turns out to be a rehearsal that gets interrupted by creditors shutting down the show for lack of payment for the theatre. From there we find three showgirls lamenting how few jobs there are and how they can’t afford food and clothes – but their spacious New York apartment is almost less believable than Bebe Daniels’ in 42nd Street. After all, these are chorus girls, not established stars.

Anyway, they learn a producer friend is putting on a show and the songwriter (Dick Powell again) across the courtyard somehow has the money to back it, with the caveat that his sweetheart Ruby Keeler (again) play the lead. From there, though, the story sort of devolves into a brief mystery regarding Powell’s true identity and where his money comes from, and then a REALLY contrived and unbelievable plot involving Keeler’s friend Joan Blondell (who’s far better than the material she’s given) and Powell’s rich brother, who doesn’t want Powell to get mixed up with showgirls. It also loses the undercurrent of the Depression, as it focuses on the backstabbing and role-playing and inexplicable falling-in-love of the characters, who start living up to the title of the film even though most of the point is supposed to be that they don’t.

By the time it’s over, there are so many unmotivated character shifts and unprovoked decisions that it’s really better to ignore the plot altogether and focus solely on Busby Berkeley’s dance routines and the one-off zingers that Blondell, Rogers, and Aline MacMahon can deliver so well. The last number finally remembers that the movie originally wanted to be about the Depression and ties it into the veterans of WWI, lamenting the fact that so many men who fought for their country are now in breadlines. Thankfully, the film ends with the strong visuals and emotion of “Remember My Forgotten Man” rather than with any silly pleasantries of the plot.

Yet even with its silliness, I still have a huge soft spot for Gold Diggers of 1933. Maybe it’s Ginger singing in Pig Latin, or dialogue exchanges like “If Barney could see ME in clothes…” / “He wouldn’t recognize you!” Or maybe it’s the shameless extravagance of Berkeley’s choreography, which would never fit on an actual stage – the routines are actually quite a bit better and more polished here than in 42nd Street. Or maybe it’s Warner Bros’ willingness to keep harping on the Depression, however sporadically and unevenly, and allow Harry Warren and Al Dubin to pen minor-keyed songs about it rather than allow people to just pretend everything’s all hunky-dory for a couple of hours in a cinema.