IT CAME FROM THE BOTTOM SHELF!

One of my cinematic blind spots has always been the Pre-Code early talkie musicals choreographed by Busby Berkeley.  It isn’t that I dislike musicals.  In fact, I love them.  The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Mary Poppins rank amongst my top ten favorite films, and I rarely let a 4th of July pass without a viewing of our all-singing, all-dancing founding fathers in 1776.  At the same time, I’ve never had much interest in hordes of synchronized chorus girls forming kaleidoscopic patterns or stacked like ornamentation on a garish wedding cake.  The “Busby Berkeley” part of the equation just held no appeal for me.  However, I like to support HD releases of silent and early talkie film; so when the Warner Archive announced that they were releasing Footlight Parade (1933) on Blu-ray, sourced from a 2K scan of the original camera negative, I thought, “Why not?  Give it a try.”  The film turned out to be both much weirder and more entertaining than I was expecting.

In many ways the story is ridiculous.  Due to the popularity of talking pictures, Broadway shows are closing prematurely, and theater director Chester Kent (James Cagney) finds himself out of a job and divorced from his gold-digging wife.  When things look blackest, he comes up with the idea of producing short musical “prologues” to be performed live for audiences before the main feature in movie theaters, and he builds up a huge company to take his shows on the road throughout the country.  That company includes a dedicated secretary (Joan Blondell), a boy tenor (Dick Powell), a mousey office girl turner hoofer (Ruby Keeler), and a cigar-chomping choreographer (Frank McHugh).  Somehow, the idea is a goldmine; but his empire is threatened by a rival company that is stealing his ideas and his customers.  Can Kent and company beat his rivals to a big 40-theater contract by staging three spectacular mini musicals in one night?  They’ll sure as heck try!

As I watched Footlight Parade, I couldn’t help but think of that old chestnut, “They don’t make ‘em like this anymore.”  The story is corny, it makes little sense, and there is not the slightest attempt to approach plausibility.  Yet, it doesn’t matter that the three over-the-top Busby Berkley musical numbers that make up the final third of the movie could never actually be produced on a theater stage.   You’re having too much fun to ask “Where’d the swimming pool come from?”

The main reason this silliness is so watchable is James Cagney.  The actor campaigned his bosses hard to get the lead in Footlight Parade, because he was tired of being typecast as a gangster.  Once he landed the part, he put his all into the project, and between rat-a-tat dialogue and fancy footwork, he hardly pauses to take a breath.  It was the first time audiences got a chance to see Cagney’s considerable skills as a dancer.  For that alone, this film belongs in the collections of serious film fanatics.  Watching James Cagney is always a pleasure, but watching James Cagney dance is cinema heaven.

Beyond Cagney, there are many other pleasures to be had in Footlight Parade, from Joan Blondell’s firecracker personality (which nearly matches Cagney’s energy), to Pre-Code naughtiness in subject matter and costumes, to Busby Berkley’s nutty tableaus.  While I’m still somewhat immune to the glitzy glamour of the Busby Berkeley showpieces, Footlight Parade has a little something for everyone.  For me, a James Cagney high kick is more than enough to satisfy.

US/B&W-103m./Dir: Lloyd Bacon/Wr: Manuel Seff and James Seymour/Cast: James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Frank McHugh, Ruth Donnelly, Guy Kibbee, Hugh Herbert, Claire Dodd, Gordon Westcott, Arthur Hohl, Renee Whitney

For Fans of: If you’re a fan of Cagney’s song and dance skills in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), you’ll likely enjoy the watching the younger version of the actor having a ball starring in his first musical picture.

Video: The Warner Archive Collection has released Footlight Parade (1933) on Blu-ray, sourced from a new 2K scan of the original camera negative.  The image is about as perfect as you could hope for.  The picture is pinpoint sharp (apart from a few shots that were shot slightly out of focus at the time of filming), and scratches and speckles are non-existent.  The original mono sound is also quite good for an early talkie.

The disc is rounded out by some nice special features:

• “Footlight Parade: Music for the Decades” – A fifteen minute featurette
• Two Vintage Warner Bros. Shorts:
  • Rambling ‘Round Radio Row #8
  • Vaudeville Reel #1
• Four Vintage Warner Bros. Cartoons:
  • Honeymoon Hotel
  • Young and Healthy
  • One Step Ahead of My Shadow
  • Sittin’ on a Backyard Fence
• Original trailer
• Optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature

You can purchase the Blu-ray directly from the Warner Archive or from other online retailers (Amazon link below).

Streaming: Footlight Parade can be rented digitally in high definition through Amazon and other outlets, but it is not currently streaming as part of any of the streaming subscription services.

More to Explore: James Cagney regretted that he didn’t make more musicals over the course of his career, but those he made are worth seeking out.  One of his lesser-known musicals, The West Point Story (1950), is available on DVD from the Warner Archive.  Co-starring Virginia Mayo, Doris Day, and Gordon MacRae, it may not be on the same level as Footlight Parade or Yankee Doodle Dandy, but it is an awful lot of fun.

Trivia: A pre-stardom John Wayne makes an unexpected cameo in Footlight Parade, as his 1933 Western, The Telegraph Trail, is playing in the background when Cagney is shown attending a movie theater.

For More Info: The two biggest standouts in Footlight Parade were James Cagney and Joan Blondell.  If you are interested in more information about either of them, let me suggest the biographies Cagney by John McCabe and Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes by Matthew Kennedy.