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Life During the Great Depression (Gold Diggers of 1933 on TCM)
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We're in the money (not for long)
A snappy line of chorus girls frolic in front of the camera: wearing skimpy outfits adorned with giant gold coins, they sing "We're in the money!" But this denial of Depression reality only lasts so long. We quickly realize they are in rehearsal, and within moments (leaving just enough time for Ginger Rogers to sing the chorus in Pig Latin) the number has been shut down by the angry producers, who are canceling the show before opening night. From there, Gold Diggers of 1933, one of the classic musicals of the Great Depression, follows starving actresses (who nonetheless maintain their good looks), an impresario, a musical composer, and various other characters as they struggle to put together the Broadway spectacle to end all Broadway spectacles. Will they pull it off? Of course - but the irony is that in the end, with the actresses landing sugar daddies and the play a hit, it's the musical numbers - rather than the "real world" around them - which have come to reflect the grim economic circumstances of the time. Take "Remember My Forgotten Man" which sends an army of the eponymous bums marching onstage through manufactured rain - putting their bodies on the line in World War I and returning to face unemployment in an America which has, indeed, turned its back on them.
Gold Diggers of 1933 will be showing Thursday, October 22 at 8:00 pm on Turner Classic Movies. It's airing as part of the monthlong series "Life During the Great Depression" which examines how Hollywood faced a long-term economic crisis, both at the time and in ensuing decades. This classic musical features a variety of show-stopping numbers, all choreographed by the legendary genius Busby Berkeley. Beginning with the classic "We're in the Money," followed about midway through the film by "Petting in the Park." The latter is an outrageous number, in which a perverted infant jumps out of his stroller to leer at female passerby (this sequence was later censored from prints and excluded from the original TV showings). The movie closes with the one-two punch of "The Shadow Waltz" (in which glow-in-the-dark female violinists form the shape of a giant violin) and the aforementioned "Remember My Forgotten Man," which utilizes breathtaking vocals from the African-American singer Etta Moten, who died only recently at the age of 102.
Gold Diggers is not only a song-and-dance masterpiece, it's a genuinely funny comedy, with stars Joan Blondell, Ginger Rogers, and Ruby Keeler juggling young songwriters and rich, fat old men (the title's there for a reason). It's one of the archetypal films of Golden Age Hollywood, remarkable for the way it combines escapism with social commentary, technical virtuosity with verbal wit. No, they don't make 'em like they used, but at least they at least run them on television from time to time. Tune in if you can, and if you like what you've seen, run to Netflix (you shouldn't have to run very far) to rent Footlight Parade and 42nd Street - two more classic Berkeleys whose choreography is, if anything, even more spectacular than that in Gold Diggers.
TCM.com has a great write-up on the history of the film; if you want more of my own thoughts on the picture, I covered it on my blog last winter.
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