Every 5 minutes: "oh, this is where that trope comes from"

A thing I like about these movies is that the stage productions they are putting on don't seem to make any fucking sense at all.

this movie really goes hard on Philadelphia

Charming—filled with sassiness, 30’s zingers, face slaps, wonderful costumes, and exceptionally lavish/jaw dropping dance numbers.

Pretty sure Busby Berkeley was some kind of chaos magician.

are musicals the horniest genre of film? let's discuss

A boldly honest portrait of the entertainment industry, unafraid to show the manipulative, predatory nature of powerful men and the strength of talented women who support one another. It’s simultaneously quite dark and relatively breezy, with minor tragedies and jokes in equal measure. These early WB-Bacon-Berkeley musicals have atypical structures — they spend the first 70 minutes building toward the finale’s musical numbers, with almost no singing or dancing before the climax, which makes the already-dazzling last set piece seem even more electrifying. It feels like a quintessential behind-the-curtain movie and a quintessential musical.

Busby Berkeley really said 

        💃💃💃💃💃💃💃
       💃                           💃
        💃                          💃
         💃                           💃
           💃💃💃💃💃💃💃

The title number alone is worth the price of admission.

Also, Ruby "Mrs Al Jolson" Keeler has to have the biggest, roundest eyes I've ever seen - even bigger than Crawford's! Her naive kid act wears a little thin by the end. But when we finally see her onstage, she's magical.

Also also, Ginger Rogers was a bit plumper than she'd be later. Just saying.

Loved the women supporting women moments!

There’s a lot of heart here even if the best part of the movie is that adorable little dog

That trust fall at the end though...wow.

Given the age of this movie, there’s a surprising amount of camera movement, most of which worked to convey the sense of chaos at rehearsal and auditions and only some of which was unnecessary or didn’t work. There’s a slight metaphysical impossibility in the portrayal of the musical as depicted in this film which is interesting: the performers are usually facing the camera, but the camera moves and inevitably the performers are not performing to the audience. The musical in the film is ostensibly for the theater audience but is staged for the camera, rather than as if it were a “real” musical. Something to chew on re: depictions of art within art. Some cool kaleidoscopic scenes sprinkled in too; effects like that always make me appreciate the physical nature of film editing.

This was a surprisingly good time. Very dated but also funny at times.

"Not Anytime Annie? Say, who could forget 'er? She only said "No" once, and THEN she didn't hear the question!"

(Insert GIF of John C. Reilly leaning around Will Ferrel) "Hello Miss Lady..."

the archetypal backstage musical.

This film is a decent romantic comedy for most of the runtime, but finishes with a spectacular (if nonsensical) musical number. I can see why this was so influential.

I like when they dance

Some of the set design is still genuinely amazing to behold

This is a prototype in a lot of ways. It still feels like they are feeling the growing pains moving from silent to sound. And it isn't a true musical in the sense that there are really only songs at the end.
But those numbers at the end are great. Berkeley goes off and it's great.

Incredibly dull, until the ending, which is absolutely spectacular...maybe just find that on YouTube? It doesn’t really need the 60 minutes of context first.