Footlight Parade (1933): Jimmy Cagney, the Hoofer

With 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933 (both 1933), Warner Brothers studio had tapped into a treasure trove of entertainment for Depression weary audiences, longing for escapist fare of the highest caliber. With these fluffy film musicals, they had just that, lots of singing, lots of dancing and spectacular kaleidoscopic choreography by master showman Busby Berkley. Striking while the iron was red hot, Warners produced Footlight Parade, a cookie cutter copy of the previous shows, before the year was out. Although not exactly the same plot, the similarities were enough to continue the successful streak for Berkley and the studio.

The plot, such as it is, revolves around the flailing career of New York stage director Chester Kent (movie tough guy James Cagney), who, in an attempt to save his struggling production company, develops “prologues”, live musical introductions to the newly popular talking pictures. As his financial woes mount, his shrewish, shallow wife demands a divorce, his competitor steals his ideas (with the help of an insider from his troupe), and his partners are swindling him of his share of the profits; add to this mix a gold-digging tootsie who latches on to his coattails when it appears he is on his way up again and you have a whirlwind of screen activity with Cagney chewing it up like it was a steak and baked potato. By his side the entire time and helping him at every turn, is his devoted and enamored secretary Nan (the incomparable Joan Blondell, at her cutest and wise-cracking snappiest).



Cagney had become a big star at Warners, along with Edward G. Robinson, as the resident grande gangster, after his breakthrough hit The Public Enemy two years earlier. But the actor had started out on the stage as a song and dance man and took this opportunity to flaunt his hoofing skills to great success. It is in this capacity and genre that he would win an Academy Award nine years later as George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy. In Footlight Parade, Cagney is a firecracker of activity, shooting rapid fire dialogue as quickly as he does a machine gun in his gangster/hoodlum pictures.

Blondell, also a Warners staple, is a scene stealer as Nan. Standing by her man throughout the whole film (even when Cagney doesn’t realize he’s her man), she sticks up for the underdog/good guy (encouraging Chester to hire talented dancer/stenographer Ruby Keeler) and protects those she loves from harm (ie: pretty but conniving Claire Dodd from bossman Cagney). Along with the two leads, Footlight Parade features the fresh faces of crooner Dick Powell and the afore mentioned Keeler, who made a dynamic duo in the year’s previous two Berkley hits.



The film is pre-Code, the time before Hollywood censorship took a stronghold, and some of its racier dialogue was sliced and diced from re-release dates after the Code took effect. However, it was restored in 1970, so today, we can enjoy a classic Blondell sniping to her gold-digging rival for Cagney’s affections: “Out countess…as long as there are sidewalks, you’ll have a job.” Other elements that post-Code films wouldn’t have gotten away with were scantily clad chorines in a the bathing beauty extravaganza “By a Waterfall.” As a matter of fact, all the musical numbers in the film’s finale have daring themes to say the least. The charming “Honeymoon Hotel” routine shows a newlywed couple (Powell and Keeler) trying to enjoy their matrimonial amour without the constant interruptions that ensue, including an odd and ribald baby played by dwarf Billy Barty. In the final number, “Shanghai Lil”, Cagney is a sailor, looking for his lost love in the bordellos and opium dens of the Orient. It is a bizarre and surreal concept and even more unusual is the introduction of Keeler’s Lil. Unlike the debauchery and wanton behavior going on around her, Keeler, as Cagney’s Asian gal pal, is cute and perky. From the rest of the performers in the bit, one would expect Marlene Dietrich to show up as the infamous Lil. However, it is nonetheless a fabulous piece of film extravagance set to music.

Fast, furious and complete fun, Footlight Parade, like its toe tapping cousins, 42nd Street and Gold Diggers, was a success and continued the trend at Warners fondly known as the “backstage musical”. The string would continue the following year with another installment of the “Gold Diggers” films, Dames and Wonder Bar.

Want to know more?
Here are some recommendations regarding the article above:
Footlight Parade (1933) DVD
Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes ~ Matthew Kennedy

If you are interested in these or any other merchandise, please help support this blog by purchasing them through the Amazon portal at the top of this page. By accessing Amazon through this site, you help me maintain resource material and continue to share my love of classic film. Thank you very much.

The Public Enemy (1931): Cagney Gives a Bang Up Performance (and a Grapefruit Facial)

The gangster film of the 1930's belonged essentially to Warner Brothers studios. Other studios made occasional forays into Gangland but the genre was Warners baby. The decade began with the studio producing Little Caesar (1930), a powerful crime drama starring Edward G. Robinson. Then in early 1931 production was started on an even grittier picture which was to star Edward Woods as brutal hood Tom Powers and James Cagney as Tom's sidekick, Matt. Yet when early rushes were viewed by the film's director William Wellman, he felt Cagney would make a more effective Tom Powers and swapped the actors. The switch and the movie, The Public Enemy, put Cagney on the map and made him a superstar.

The film tells of the rise and fall of a Chicago hoodlum in the early 20th Century. Cagney's is a tour de force performance. He is a brutal, amoral, self-centered, cold blooded killer. Hot headed and cocky, Cagney's Tom has no respect for anyone, save his mother (Beryl Mercer) and even that is questionable. Much of the film's power comes from its proximity in time to real gangster activity in the United States. Like a "ripped from the headlines" story of present day, its grit and realism made a strong impact on Depression era audiences who were still in the midst of Prohibition. Yet with all the violence encompassed in The Public Enemy, any killing is done off screen, making the unseen even more heinous than the seen. Made well before the strict enforcement of Hollywood's self imposed Production Code, the film gets away with much in the way of violence and sexual overtones.

Another up and comer in the movie world to be featured was Jean Harlow. Although hers was a small role in terms of screen time, she smoldered and oozed sex, giving audiences a sneak peek of what she would offer in her MGM hits a few years later. The blonde bombshell was only 19 when The Public Enemy was filmed but she exuded the confidence and appeal of a woman many years older. Other females featured in the male dominated photoplay were the always delightful Joan Blondell and starlet Mae Clarke. Cute Blondell does fine with the handful of lines that she is given, but it is Miss Clarke, whose scene with Cagney shoving a grapefruit in her face at the breakfast table, who is best remembered. The grapefruit scene became an icon of Hollywood clips, shown in many retrospectives through the decades (Mae Clarke also starred in another classic 1931 film, the original Frankenstein, as Colin Clive's fiancee). Cagney recounts in his autobiography that Clarke's ex-husband, Lew Brice (brother to comedienne Fanny Brice) would often buy a ticket for the film, go into the theater, watch the grapefruit scene and leave.

As stated before, The Public Enemy shot James Cagney to stardom and made him a hot commodity at Warners, but it was at a price. The former hoofer and vaudevillian was typecast as a gangster for much of the 1930's despite colorful excursions in Footlight Parade (1933) and Warner's all-star A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935). It wasn't until his Oscar winning role in 1942's Yankee Doodle Dandy that his full range was appreciated. However, his performance in The Public Enemy shouldn't be minimized as typecasting. His is a riveting portrayal, one can't take their eyes off his brutality and callousness, a menacing coil ready to spring into action at a moments notice, whether to kill in cold blood or shove citrus in his girlfriend's face.

The Adventures of Robin Hood(1938): In Like Flynn

In the classic age of Hollywood, no film was more colorful (both literally and figuratively) and fun than Warner Brother's The Adventures of Robin Hood, and though Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. could buckle the best swash during the silent era, Errol Flynn was the master of such films in the 30's and 40's. The legend, who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor, has been portrayed by many actors for many decades but above them all, Flynn is the definitive Robin Hood. (Daffy Duck did give a great animated rendition in the 1958 cartoon short, Robin Hood Daffy).

Along with the charismatic leading man, Olivia de Havilland jumps to mind as his lady fair, Maid Marian, Hood's own personal "Norman conquest." In all, Flynn and de Havilland made eight films together with their romp in Sherwood Forest being their third and most famous. But even as these iconic images are ingrained into the national psyche for this film, alas, like so many other infamous roles in Hollywood, they were not the original choices. Hood was first slated for James Cagney as a sort of follow up to his whimsical role as Bottom in the studio's version of Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1935. When Cagney and Warners butted heads, the project was postponed until a later date. When Flynn proved himself a magnetic adventure lead in Captain Blood (1935) and The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) the film was put back into production. Blond beauty Anita Louise, also a veteran of A Midsummer Night's Dream (as Titania), was first considered for the role of Lady Marian but with so much riding on the picture financially (it was Warner's biggest production to that date and the final cost was $2 million), the studio wanted to ensure a proven film team with Flynn and de Havilland. Other parts were recast for one reason or another. First choice for Friar Tuck, Guy Kibee was replaced by the gravel voiced and corpulent Eugene Pallette and Robin's sidekick, Will Scarlett, though originally slated for David Niven, eventually went to handsome contract player, Patric Knowles.

The Robin Hood legend has been oft-told, but never so colorfully full of pomp and pageantry. Flynn plays Robin, Earl of Locksley, a Saxon noble in 12th century England, who, along with his band of "merry men", protects the poor Saxons from the villainous and utterly corrupt Norman nobles, who have taken power in the nation during the absence of the king, Richard the Lionhearted (Ian Hunter). Worst of these are Richard's brother, the treacherous Prince John (Claude Rains) who, with the help of the equally despicable Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Basil Rathbone) plans to take over England's throne permanently, while King Richard is away fighting in the Crusades. The film is a great romantic adventure and that aspect is provided by Lady Marian Fitzwater, aka Maid Marian (de Havilland), Norman noblewoman and orphaned ward of King Richard. At first disdainful to the pompous Robin, she falls in love with him when he reveals his true intentions of helping his suffering countrymen.

Warners brought in their top adventure director Michael Curtiz to replace initial director William Keighley, when more punch was required in the action scenes. The final product was superb, from the archery tournament to the final duel between Robin and Sir Guy, the one-two punch of excitement never lets up. As the evil duo of Prince John and Sir Guy, Rains and Rathbone cannot be beat. Rains, sly and cunning and Rathbone vicious and sadistic in his attack of the hero, both verbally and physically. An excellent swordsman off-screen, Rathbone is marvelous fencing against a very agile and able Flynn. Equally magnificent is the film's opulent musical score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The talented Korngold did not want to undertake the task, claiming he was "not a musical illustrator for a 90% action picture," but was persuaded by the studio brass to take on the challenge and his brilliant score won an Academy Award. Also winning Oscars for the film were Best Art Direction and Best Film Editing.

The movie, shot in the richest Technicolor, cemented Errol Flynn's status as an action superstar. What he began with Captain Blood, three years earlier, he capped with Hood. More successful than Fairbank's popular version, The Adventures of Robin Hood was Warner Brothers' biggest moneymaker of the year and would continue to be one of its most remembered classics.