Gold Diggers Of 1933 (1933) film notes by Tova Gannana for CSA Hitchcock

The choreographer of Gold Diggers Of 1933 (1933) Busby Berkeley, drank martinis while taking his daily bath, married six times, went to court for vehicular homicide, died of natural causes at the age of 80, and released five musical films in 1933. About dance in film, the critic Arlene Croce wrote, “In America, you were either Tap or Toe, and Toe was art.” Berkeley’s choreography in 1933 was all about fantasy. In unison, dancers transformed into a waterfall, an illuminated violin, ladies and their fellas picnicing at the park, and gold coins shimmying in hypnotic formations. Croce called it, “kaleidoscopic.” One of Berkeley's trademarks was that each dancer had a closeup, like in a pageant. The musicals of the 1930’s were about work, losing it, needing it, looking for, having to give it up, or choosing between. Women in life and in films were in the workforce and were conflicted. Secretaries like Barbara Stanwyck in Baby Face (1933) sleeping her way to the top of the bank where she types, she knows it's wrong, but she’s ambitious. Carole Lombard in Hands Across The Table (1935) plays a manicurist who wants to quit and marry rich. The dancers in Gold Diggers just want to put on a show. The title of the film is a play on the stereotypes of the working women Stanwyck and Lombard played. 

Gold Diggers is tap not toe, and it is an art film. The actors and all involved were artists. They lived exciting, hard lives. They worked early and all the time. Ned Sparks who plays the theater director Barney Hopkins, left home at 16 to join the Klondike Gold Rush. Guy Kibbe who plays Faneuil H. Peabody, a wealthy lawyer whose client is a playboy, was setting type at age seven for his father, an editor at the El Paso Herald-Post. At 14, Kibbee ran away to join a road show. Ruby Keeler who plays Polly Parker, was dancing in New York nightclubs from the age of 13. She married Al Jolson in Hollywood at 19. Ginger Rogers who plays Fay Fortune, had thought of becoming a school teacher but instead learned show business from her mother Lela, a studio scriptwriter. Rogers was married five times. During the filming of Gold Diggers she had an affair with the director Mervyn Leroy who years later directed Frank Sinatra in the short film, The House I live In (1945) about the need for tolerance and acceptance of all races and religions in America. The title song of that film has been covered by socially conscious singers from Mahalia Jackson to Sam Cooke. Patti LaBelle sang the song for Frank Sinatra’s 80th birthday as he listened in the audience. Dick Powell who plays the leading man Brad Roberts, grew up in Little Rock singing gospel. Joan Blondell who plays the dancer Carol King, was born into a family of vaudeville actors. At four months she appeared onstage in her cradle. Three years after Powell and Blondell starred in Gold Diggers the two were married, but not for long. Powell sang and danced in films from the 1930’s to the early 1940’s when he switched to film noir. Powell was the first to play Detective Phillip Marlowe in Murder My Sweet (1944). Humphrey Bogart later took the character Marlowe for his own spin. Bogart bought Powell’s boat from him. They loved being out on the water. They starred in films opposite husky voiced Lizabeth Scott, who also sang in films, but not musicals. She starred in nightclubs, holding the mic. Scott played beautiful women who got roughed up. She did the rough housing, mostly with her voice. 

Hollywood was small then. The studios owned themselves. They were not international conglomerates as they are now. Movie tickets and lipstick sales were high during The Depression. Most small towns had theaters. Cities of all sizes had cinemas. Making a film meant work for many people. Sets, costumes, scripts, choreography, musicians, you name it and it was needed. People were hungry and popcorn was consumed along with the movies. In the 1930’s the American audience wanted to escape by watching onscreen what could only have seemed to be an alternate universe. Gold Diggers opens during the rehearsal of a Broadway musical. The number is “We’re In The Money,” which is ironic because the show is about to close before it has a chance to open. The principals in the film are also the principals of the show. The director Barney employs four dancers, Carol, Trixie, Polly and Fay. The women live together in a cold water flat. Trixie steals milk from a neighbor's window ledge. They share one good dress. Brad Roberts, a piano player and composer lives across the way. He sings and plays for Polly. While slicing bread for their breakfast Carol says, “I can remember not so long ago a penthouse on Park Avenue, with a real tree, and flowers, and a fountain, and a French maid. And a warm bath with salts from Yardleys. And a little dress that Schiaparelli ran up. And a snappy roadster and a ride through the park. Now we’re stealing milk.” Carol doesn’t miss the things so much as the work that made it possible for her to buy her version of the good life. The women are in it not for the cash prize but for the reward of employment. To work is to have where to go. To work is to have things to do that need to get done. To work is to tire, to sleep soundly, to wake refreshed in order to go back to work the next day. The movies of the 1930’s were about work, because for so many finding work was just a fantasy.