"Footlight Parade," or Taps

Everything below this logo is made up.

INTEROFFICE MEMO

April 12, 1933

FROM: Busby Berkeley

TO: Jack Warner

Greetings, J.L.

First off, let me say I was delighted to see you at the premiere of "Gold Diggers of 1933" the other night along with your new protege, Miss LaTour. I think her studio dancing lessons are paying off -- she seemed very flexible. And then she did that high kick that knocked off Jolson's toupee when he was looking up her skirt! I thought May Robson was going to bust a gut laughing.

Second, many thanks for the gift of the spats. I can't think of a better way to mark the success of "42nd Street" except maybe a large bonus, ha ha!

Now to the point of this memo -- an update on our next musical project.

I know we have a title picked out -- "Step-Ins of 1934" -- and we have James Cagney set as our lead. I have a story sketched out that I'd like to tell you.

I have an idea that Cagney, basically, plays me in this picture -- he is a brilliant creator-choreographer of motion picture prologues. And he is a prisoner of his own success, something I -- if you will excuse a personal aside -- know a little something about.

Every time Cagney comes up with a brilliant musical number filled with drama, spicy humor, scantily dressed girls and dazzling geometric dance routines -- something that takes weeks to choreograph, costume, set up and shoot -- he gets but one response from his bosses:

"Whaddya gonna do next?"

It's enough to drive a person to drink! (Speaking of drinking, J.L., thanks for having a "talk" to the judge about that whole messy car wreck incident.)

So Cagney is the brains of the outfit, and he works for two oafish producers -- let's say Guy Kibbee and Arthur Hohl. They are lazy, leeching slobs who wouldn't know Art if they tripped over it. They contribute nothing of value, but they are content to ride on the back of Cagney's success. His creations make thousands for the company and yet he is rewarded with something puny and insignificant, like a lousy pair of spats.

In fact, no one recognizes Cagney's creativity except his loyal girl Friday -- Joan Blondell, of course. Everyone else in this picture is out only for themselves, unable to see past their egos, refusing to credit, even fleetingly, the genius of Berk -- I mean Cagney.









And speaking of Cagney, I think he will be swell in this picture. He has a natural pugnacious grace that fits the character perfectly and a background in dance. I know he will be happy to step away from gangster roles temporarily -- he and I have had many heart-to-heart talks about what it's like to be taken for granted by oafish producers who make millions while the performer gives his all and guarantees the success of a picture much more than anything contributed by the overpaid, empty suits in the front office.

But I digress.

As for the supporting cast, I believe we can get Dick Powell and, of course, Ruby Keeler. A Warner's musical wouldn't be a Warner's musical without Keeler and her electric feet. Frank McHugh has only appeared in about 65 other Warner's films so far this year, so he's in. And Hugh Herbert keeps bothering me about a part, so I guess we can use him.






And before you ask me "whaddya got," I can tell you that the musical numbers will be sensational, J.L. These are, of course, the numbers Cagney's character slaves over while everyone else in the business is busy counting the money he makes for them.

And, of course, they will all feature Keeler. One will be called "By a Waterfall," featuring dozens of young woman in flesh-colored bathing suits, with strings of green vines as thongs.

Then there will be another number called "Shanghai Lil," where Cagney and Keeler will dance a duet.

I haven't forgotten, J.L., that there are two things you want to see in every one of my movies. One is that weird-looking little lecherous midget kid who makes you, as you once told me, laugh your balls off. 

And the other is that man in the White House. We will manage to squeeze in a subtle message about him.











Finally, just one more thought. While I recognize the box-office value of a title like "Step-Ins of 1934," I also know that the general feeling in Hollywood these days is that the Production Code we've been flouting for so long is about to get some teeth. So rather than ask for trouble, I've been thinking of another, less incendiary title. What do you think of "Footlight Parade"? Chew it over like one of those big expensive cigars you always have in your mouth and see what you think.

As for me, I'm convinced that, by any title, this movie is going to be a hit. How big a hit? Let's just say I look forward to getting a new pair of spats.

Best,
Bus

"City Streets," or Gang Man Style

The 1931 film "City Streets" is blessed visually in several ways. One is by the smooth, innovative direction of Rouben Mamoulian, who in this film introduces one storytelling technique that today's movies are still using. Another is the atmospheric photography by Lee Garmes, who also shot "Scarface," "Gone with the Wind" and "Nightmare Alley." And then there's the presence of a tall, handsome drink of water named Gary Cooper.

Cooper plays a character called simply "the Kid" -- a straight shooter who also happens to be a crack shot. At this point, Cooper was also a legendary ladies man, with a line of conquests that included Clara Bow and Lupe Velez, and it's easy to see why -- aside from his physical attractiveness, he radiates strength and confidence.

Born Frank Cooper in Montana, our hero took up horseback riding as a kind of physical therapy to recuperate from a hip injury he suffered in a car accident. This made him a natural for western roles, such as in "The Virginian" and "The Man From Wyoming," but his cowboy's nonchalance wasn't restricted to the range -- for instance, as a Foreign Legionnaire taken by Marlene Dietrich in "Morocco," he might as well be wearing chaps.

"City Streets" begins with the Kid working at a carnival, where he runs the shooting gallery and amazes the spectators with his trick gun work. His best girl is Nan (Sylvia Sidney). She's a good kid with just one fault -- she's loyal to her nogoodnik stepfather (Guy Kibbee), who works as a "bodyguard" for bootlegger Big Fella (Paul Lukas).

Big Fella's catchphrase is "no hard feelings," which is gangster-speak for "very hard feelings indeed, and you will be riddled with bullets as soon as I can step out of the way." We first get a look at Big Fella as he's collecting protection money from a reluctant client:




I think we all know the moral to this story: never get your hat personalized.

Nan and the Kid want to get married, but they can't on his gallery salary. She tries to talk him into joining Big Fella's gang, but he's reluctant. Then when Big Fella's main rival is killed with stepfather's gun, Nan's loyalty is put to the test. She's found guilty of withholding evidence and is sent to prison. While there, she sours on the mob and is grateful that the Kid isn't mixed up in it. But he is. He tells her the news during a prison visit, and later that night it's still rattling around in her head:


(The voiceover in Nan's head is making its first movie appearance. Nicely done, Mamoulian.)

Once Nan is released from stir, she wants to pry the Kid loose from Big Fella's clutches. But Big Fella is more interested in getting his clutches around Nan. The Kid and Big Fella have a showdown over Nan, and Big Fella decides its time to rub out the Kid. But Nan pretends to be interested in Big Fella in order to save the Kid's life. Then one of Big Fella's old girlfriends (Wynne Gibson) shoots him and frames Nan. Everybody wants to nab Nan, but the Kid takes control of the mob in this skillfully edited scene:


"City Streets" is based on a Dashiell Hammett story and adapted by Max Marcin, the man behind the "Crime Doctor" radio and film series of the 1930s and '40s. It has the narrative drive you'd expect from a Warner Bros. gangster movie with the European visual flair of a Paramount film. That style flows all the way through to the final scene -- the Kid and Nan have escaped from the mob and crank up Wagner on the car radio as the camera pans up to birds circling in the sky.

Here are full cast and credits for "City Streets."

The David Manners Film Festival: "The Ruling Voice" and "Crooner"

"You can call me Kit, or
you can call me Franklin,
or you can call me Franklyn,
or you can call me Austin ..."

Of all the actors who appeared in 1930s movies, David Manners (1900-98) was certainly one of them.

Today he is best known for playing the straight man in monster movies like "Dracula," "The Mummy" and "The Black Cat." He was discovered by James Whale, who cast Manners in the gritty 1930 film "Journey's End," a World War I drama based on the stage production that Whale directed.

Most of the time, however, Manners played people with good manners -- upper class boyfriends and fiancees with names like Kit, Franklin, Franklyn, Austin and Eden.

The 1931 film "The Ruling Voice" is a good example -- Manners plays Dick Cheney (!), an aristocratic young man who's in love with Gloria Bannister (Loretta Young). Gloria and Dick have fallen in love in Europe and are now heading home to meet Gloria's father, Jack (Walter Huston). Gloria doesn't know it, but dad is a ruthless racketeer, and in his obsessive collection of protection money he will stop at nothing -- he even knocks really cool toy trucks off of miniature highway bridges right into the path of model trains!



Truthfully, Manners doesn't have much to do in "The Ruling Voice" -- the real love story is between father and daughter. Jack is honest with Gloria about what he does for a living and she doesn't want anything to do with him, leading him to give up his shady dealings and sacrifice himself. So Huston and Young get tense, emotional scenes while Manners spends his time at the shuffleboard court in scenes like this:



In 1932's "Crooner," Manners gets a lot more to do and does it pretty well, showing a flair for light comedy. At a time when velvet-voiced groaners like Bing Crosby, Russ Columbo and Rudy Vallee were topping the charts, Manners plays bandleader Teddy Taylor. He and his musical aggravation -- excuse me, aggregation -- aren't going anywhere until Teddy starts singing and Guy Kibbee, as a guy in the crowd, hands him a megaphone:



Teddy soon becomes as well known as Chipso soap flakes (hey, this is 1932), aided by fast-talking agent Ken Murray and loving girlfriend Ann Dvorak (in a sedate performance that's a far cry from her craziness in "Three on a Match," made the same year). "Crooner" has a great deal of fun lampooning all the hype surrounding these early media-created superstars, and making it clear that most of them, Taylor included, have very little talent. That doesn't, however, keep Teddy from getting a swelled head:



Fame makes Teddy even more insufferable -- he adopts a phony British accent, starts hobnobbing with millionaires and, worst of all, ignores Guy Kibbee when he returns to remind Teddy about giving him his first megaphone! Finally, one evening he takes the stage after a few drinks:



Teddy commits PR Hara-Kari by hitting a handicapped veteran, and his career goes down the tubes, leading him back to Dvorak and a happy ending.

In real life, Manners tired of being stereotyped and left Hollywood in 1936. In later years he did some stage work (including a play with a young Marlon Brando) and wrote several books.

Here are the complete credits for "The Ruling Voice" and a trailer:




Here are the complete credits for "Crooner" and a trailer:   

"Union Depot" and the Warner Regulars

In their underrated 1978 film "Movie Movie" director Stanley Donen and screenwriters Larry Gelbart and Sheldon Keller paid homage to the 1930s movies they loved as kids. To do this, Gelbart and Keller wrote two 45-minute movies -- one a black-and-white boxing film, the other a musical in color -- so that "Movie Movie" took the form of a double feature. More importantly, as in the 1930s when studios had stock companies -- players under contract -- it was a double feature with the same actors (including Art Carney, George C. Scott, Eli Wallach, Red Buttons and Trish Van Devere), but in different roles. The movie even had a preview of coming attractions -- a World War I movie ("War at its best!") with all the same actors as the other two movies.

In 1932's "Union Depot" we get to see a good chunk of the Warner stock company from the early 1930s, including Frank McHugh, Guy Kibbee, Alan Hale and David Landau. They all have business of one sort or another within the majestic marble structure where people are coming and going while announcements of train departures bounce off the walls. The movie opens with a tracking/crane shot to show you the whole enchilada:



More than other Hollywood studios, Warner Bros. had a uniquely working-class viewpoint, and in this movie it's expressed by the fact that the station is teeming with immigrants, from Eastern Europeans -- as seen above -- to Asians:



Our hero is Chic (pronounced "chick," not "cheek"), played by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. He and his sidekick, Scratch (Kibbee), have just been released from the local hoosegow on a vagrancy charge, and they're looking to raise a few bucks. Chic gets lucky when he "inherits" a suit from a drunken traveler (McHugh, doing one of his specialties) with money in the pocket. He buys himself dinner, and then he sees a forlorn-looking Ruth (Joan Blondell) on a bench. She's a chorus girl who broke her ankle; now she's recovered, but the show has moved on without her, and she needs money to catch a train to Salt Lake City, where she can get her job back. At the same time, Scratch has come across a claim check. Chic redeems it, and gets a violin case -- filled with money!

Meanwhile, the guy who belongs to the case (Hale) is trying to get it back, and he'll get tough if he has to, see? And Ruth is trying to escape the clutches of a creepy old guy (see creep at right) who developed the hots for her during her recovery. And the money turns out to be counterfeit, and Chic is arrested by the feds, leading to a pretty cool chase through the train yards as he tries to capture the real bad guy, Hale:



And one thing's for sure -- if you didn't like the Warner regulars in these roles, you'd be seeing them in something different within a few weeks. In 1932 McHugh appeared in eight films -- he played a mechanic in "The Crowd Roars," a frantic new father in "Life Begins" and a wisecracking reporter in "Blessed Event," among others. Kibbee was just as busy, going from a drunk hobo here to a corrupt cop in "Big City Blues" to a bartender in "The Mouthpiece" to James Cagney's father in "The Crowd Roars."

Here are the full credits for "Union Depot."

"Girl Missing": How Glenda Farrell Got Us Through the Great Depression

In 1933, Glenda Farrell appeared in 10 movies at Warner Bros. and one at Columbia Pictures -- that's 11 movies in 12 months. In all of them, she pretty much played the same role -- a fast talking, quick thinking, wisecracking, goodhearted dame who was usually the heroine's best friend.

"Listen up, ya mug! Amscray! Can't you see
  you're being played for a sap? Drop that frail!"

But what Farrell may have lacked in range she made up for in sheer onscreen presence and style -- you always knew what to expect from her, and rarely is she an unwelcome presence in the movies she appears in.

"Girl Missing" is a great example -- she's Kay Curtis, the sidekick of June Dale (Mary Brian). They're chorus girls in between shows who've wangled a trip to a Palm Springs resort with a wealthy dullard (Guy Kibbee). He finally gets wise and leaves them holding the bag, addressing a goodbye note to "The G.D. Sisters." "I don't know if he means gold diggers or another well-known word," Farrell says.

While trying to find a sugar daddy to pay their hotel bill, they encounter a fellow chorus girl who's hiding her identity so she can marry the wealthy Henry Gibson (Ben Lyon).  She gives them the high hat, but when she disappears and a reward is offered, Kay and June smell a rat (played by Lyle Talbot) and set to work.

There isn't a whole lot more to "Girl Missing," but it moves at a swift pace right up to the ending, where Farrell's character wraps everything up in pretty pink ribbons, Talbot is put in the pokey, and Lyon and Brian form a vaudeville act -- not really, but with those names, they should.

"Girl Missing" was released on March 4, 1933, the same day President Franklin Roosevelt was inaugurated and promptly closed the nation's lending institutions for a "holiday" to prevent bank runs. It was, by most accounts, the depth of the Great Depression. Movies like "Girl Missing" and performers like Farrell, and her Warner co-players James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, to name just two, represented a kind of quintessentially American character -- tough, realistic, good humored, unafraid.

For complete credits and other information, click here.