Footlight Parade (1933)

Sequins, Stereotypes and Showbiz Chaos - Footlight Parade review by griggs

Busby Berkeley really earns his stripes here — and not just from all the sequins. Footlight Parade is big, brassy, and bursting with energy, even if the story feels like it was scribbled during a dance break. The musical numbers are dazzling, but everything between them creaks — jokes misfire, pacing drags, and a few actors wander through scenes like they’re waiting for direction.

Cagney talks a mile a minute and somehow keeps the thing afloat by sheer charisma. Like a lot of pre-Code musicals, it mixes glittering choreography with some seriously dated racial and colonial imagery — the kind of stuff that makes you wince now but was shrugged off then. The clearest example is the final number, “Shanghai Lil,” where Cagney and Ruby Keeler perform in a fake Shanghai bar packed with Orientalist décor and Asian caricatures. Dancers appear in stereotyped makeup and costumes — and there’s even a brief, awful shot of Black performers made up as enslaved Africans, used purely for spectacle, not story.

For all that, Footlight Parade still has its spark. It’s messy, loud, and more than a little tone-deaf, but it’s hard not to admire a film that throws everything — glitter, rhythm, and chaos — at the screen and somehow sticks the landing.

Warner's Musical. - Footlight Parade review by Steve

In the same year as 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933, Warner Brothers followed up with another musical comedy with many of the same cast, notably Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler. Busby Berkeley again arranged three extraordinary set pieces at the climax of the film to the songs of Dubin and Warren. Many critics consider this the best of the three.

Instead of Broadway, this one is set in a small film studio which makes live action 'prologues' for cinemas. James Cagney is the director/producer who is struggling because his shareholders are pocketing the profits and some heel is leaking ideas to a rival. Jimmy puts on his dancing shoes for the climactic Shanghai Lil. 

The story is familiar, but still functions. There's a brilliant gag when the censor gets caught in a clinch with a girl and exclaims: 'I was just showing her what you're not allowed to show in Kalamazoo!' Maybe there's an impression that Harry Warren is having to recycle tunes and the dialogue isn't as sharp as before. We miss Ginger Rogers and the sassy chorus line gals.

But Footlight Parade still triumphs, mainly because of Berkeley's amazing final trilogy: Honeymoon Hotel, By a Waterfall and Shanghai Lil . He's operating at the top of his range. The aquatic ballet, By a Waterfall, is one of the outstanding musical numbers in thirties cinema. Which means, in film history.