Footlight Parade
1933 Directed by Lloyd Bacon
Synopsis
James Cagney stars as a fledgling producer who finds himself at odds with his workers, financiers and his greedy ex-wife when he tries to produce live musicals for movie-going audiences. Co-starring Joan Blondell and Dick Powell with spectacular Busby Berkeley dance sequences. Inducted into the Library of Congress National Film Registry.
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Roger Ebert has this category of movies that he playfully calls "Bruised Forearm Movies." As he wrote in his review of Steven Spielberg's "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (which has a pretty high place in my personal Bruised Forearm pantheon), "That's the kind of movie where your date is always grabbing your forearm in a viselike grip, as unbearable excitement unfolds on the screen. After the movie is over, you've had a great time but your arm is black-and-blue for a week." In the past, most of the films I've considered great Bruised Forearm Movies have been action thrillers and fantasy adventures; films as disparate as the aforementioned Indiana Jones flick, "Die Hard 2" (yes, the sequel, because…
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Cagney's cinema prologues face being swept away by talking pictures, embezzlement and corporate intrigue but he is determined to come up with musical numbers that will save the day.
Great to see Cagney in an out and out musical, his dancing is excellent but it mainly actually seems like it just suits his incredible energy. There's something almost unreal by how he bursts into every conversation, wonderfully tempered by Blondell's stillness and intelligence.
Superb Berkley numbers to finish it off, a cute romantic thread from Keeler and Powell (more Keeler, Powell is endearingly goofy) and a strong script that digs away at moralising and censorship.
Excellent movie.
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Film #26 of The December Project.
James motherfucking Cagney.
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80 years after its release, Busby Berkeley and Lloyd Bacon's FOOTLIGHT PARADE has become something it never really intended to be; a time capsule for a nearly forgotten piece of film history - the live prologue. During the silent era, live prologues featuring singing and dancing were common in big cities as entertainment before the feature film. FOOTLIGHT PARADE stars James Cagney as a prologue director who finds himself on the brink of extinction at the dawn of the sound era who finds a way to reinvent himself by producing prologues in bulk to save money; staging massive production numbers at multiple theaters with the same company each night. The rapid fire dialogue is just as sharp and fresh as…
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Showy backstage musical with some fantastically unrealistically staged Busby Berkeley numbers. I loved the dreamy water dance sequence. I need to research 1930s culture some more to understand "Honeymoon Hotel." It's sad as a modern viewer, watching something and thinking... I know this is a euphemism... but about WHAT?
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Cagney's cinema prologues face being swept away by talking pictures, embezzlement and corporate intrigue but he is determined to come up with musical numbers that will save the day.
Great to see Cagney in an out and out musical, his dancing is excellent but it mainly actually seems like it just suits his incredible energy. There's something almost unreal by how he bursts into every conversation, wonderfully tempered by Blondell's stillness and intelligence.
Superb Berkley numbers to finish it off, a cute romantic thread from Keeler and Powell (more Keeler, Powell is endearingly goofy) and a strong script that digs away at moralising and censorship.
Excellent movie.
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"Hollywood Calif - Motion Picture Producers Announce Only Talking Pictures Will Be Made In Future - Silent Pictures Are Finished" So says the marquee at the beginning of Warners Brothers musical 'Footlight Parade'.
The third of Warners musicals released that year this sees James Cagney as a director of Broadway musicals who doesn’t think 'talkies' have much chance of staying,
"Aw, talking pictures, it's just a fad." He says!
Then he is shown just how popular talking pictures are by a couple of producers who have made the switch from stage to screen. Realising that maybe he was wrong he hits upon an idea to produce short musical numbers called 'Prologues' to be shown in movie theatres before the main… -
An uneven film that absolutely takes off in its final third with three outstanding musical set pieces. Exquisite choreography, inventive cinematography, and infectious music breathe life into an otherwise ho-hum film. Cagney is solid, eliciting a few smiles along the way, but the first two-thirds is little more than a set up to the final sequences.
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One of the best. Also, one of my favorite memories is getting stuck on The Great Movie Ride in Disney Hollywood Studios. Always a must-see for me.
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So Busby Berkeley that it hurts. In a good way. I had to wait a long time for Cagney's musical number but it was worth it.
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The story here is the typical Busby Berkeley schtick with a struggling producer putting on a show with numerous perfunctory romantic subplots going on in the background. Cagney makes this stuff work better than it should (and better than the similar material of 42nd Street), but musicals live and die on the strength of their set pieces, and here Footlight Parade falls short. None of the numbers really stand out other than the interesting and dark (and racist) "Shanghai Lil" number. Check that out on Youtube, but otherwise you can probably skip this one.
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The commodity artist
Pushed to his limits
As bodies become shapes.
Decidedly Pre-Code
But shan't we be crass?