. . . while others simply credit FOOTLIGHT PARADE dance director Busby Berkeley for inventing the Olympic Sports of Synchronized Swimming and Diving. However, such facile characterizations overlook the fact that FOOTLIGHT PARADE is a Warner Bros. offering, meaning that its primary function is to warn America of its future Calamities, Catastrophes, Cataclysms, and Apocalypti. Like many if not most Warner movies, FOOTLIGHT spotlights the more egregious aspects of Corrupt U.S. Job-Killing Corporate Capitalism, as the Fat Cat One Per Centers with all the money--played by Guy Kibbee and his partner here--use their vast Wealth to steal even More Moolah from the people with Ideas and Talent who are DOING ALL THE WORK, such as James Cagney. Though the topical tribute to The People's President--FDR--as the "Shanghai Lil" number closes this film, sandwiched amid a symbolic takeover of an American Military Unit by a squad of Chinese hookers, may seem like an omen of World War Two, it's actually a Clarion Call to we Americans of Today to keep Our Eagle Eyes (flashed on the screen just after FDR's mug) on the MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE turned Inauguree of Shanghai's Trump Tower of Ill-Repute against that day just around our corner now in which he inevitably sells out America, Taiwan, and the rest of the Formerly Free World to his Fascist Red Commie Chinese Creditors.

While "42nd Street" and "Gold Diggers of 1933" had very strong story lines, the follow-up with Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler, "Footlight Parade", did not, presenting more of a revue like structure to this entertaining account of the creation of prologues to big movie events, traveling around New York City from theater to theater to put on a quick show. James Cagney puts aside his machine gun and grapefruit to play director and hoofer, showing another side to his many talents in the somewhat racist "Shanghai Lil" production number where Ruby Keeler replaces "R's" with "L's". While this number is artistically excellent, it is comparable to all of the blackface numbers utilized in minstrel and vaudeville show as well as many movies who would continue to have Caucasians playing non-whites in both singing and non-singing roles throughout the golden age of movies.Much better artistically and definitely more timeless is the delightful "By a Waterfall", the elaborate, rather lengthy production number that is Busby Berkley's follow-up to his 1932 Sam Goldwyn film "The Kid From Spain" which opened with a similar water musical number. Ruby's also in this with her regular partner Dick Powell. The number is an absolute delight from start to finish. She puts on a cat suit and sings "Sittin' on a Backyard Fence", a delightful mini-number where little Billy Barty plays a mouse. As a sequel to "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" from "42nd Street", "Honeymoon Hotel" is perfectly witty as relatives invade an eloping couple and house detectives remind them that "You're in Jersey City, and not in Hollywood". Once again, Barty (who also had a fun little cameo in "Gold Diggers of 1933") appears, playing Keeler's baby brother who is accidentally "left behind".What exists of a story surrounds Cagney's battles with ex-wife Renee Whitney while his assistant Joan Blondell pines for him. Warner Brothers contract players Frank McHugh, Ruth Donnelly, Guy Kibbee, Hugh Herbert and Claire Dodd also add amusing moments to the proceedings. Definitely one of the musicals that woke up to the censors for what they believed to be needed changes in movie good taste, "Footlight Parade" remains an easy on the eye treat that isn't going to tax your brain, but will provide some very interesting insight to the styles of entertainment that the country was enjoying during the early years of Roosevelt's presidency as the country struggled to move out of the depression. There's no depression here, however, so just enjoy all the silliness and the best of what Busby Berkley could do.

Not so much a musical as a mating call set to music. But then what else could be expected from three back-to-back production numbers from that carnally-obsessed choreographer Busby Berkeley. "Beside the Waterfall" alone has enough 'flowering o's', half-dressed chorines, and suggestive camera angles to make Hugh Hefner blush and send Dr. Freud into terminal overload. Then too, who else but the mad Mr. Berkeley could convert the complicated matter of sex into a mere conjugation of overhead geometry. There's also "Honeymoon Hotel", a celebration of the no-tell motel, with marching phalanxes of hormonally driven couples all named Smith, and led by a demonic cupid looking like an early Billy Barty. The sight of his tiny legs chasing after a fleeing Amazon is enough to drive Harpo Marx to distraction and cause the audience to doubt the laws of physics. While bringing down the curtain is the marching madness of "Shanghai Lil", where Berkeley proves-- in case you ever doubted-- that race, creed, and bad make-up make no difference to a Chinese bordello. It's sort of an early gathering of the UN, where people from all over come together to discuss the world's number one topic. All in all, there's enough sheer pizzaz, flash, and animal energy in these numbers to light up a thousand dark movie houses.Sure, Warner Bros. tries to cover the orgy with the fig leaf of two cheerful innocents played by a sappy Dick Powell and a virginal Ruby Keeler. But it doesn't work, because everyone else gets in on the fun, including that human buzz-saw Jimmy Cagney and everyone's favorite sassy dame Joan Blondell. Director Lloyd Bacon proves too he knows what to do, giving us an eyeful of Blondell endlessly rolling and unrolling her hosiery, while the writers pepper the conversation with suggestive one-liners. Yeah, it's a great movie-- good enough to help bring down the heavy hand of censorship the following year, and put an end to damp dreams like "Beside a Waterfall". But not even the Watchdogs of Public Morality could stop Berkeley's deliriously suggestive pageantry that would live on at even that most repressed of studios, MGM. Sure, Astaire-Rogers may have been more graceful and a whole lot more chaste, no doubt producing more sheer polish-- still and all, don't let this unabashedly pagan celebration pass you by. As they say around the owl cage, it's a real hoot.

Forget the plot. It's a kind of re-run of "42nd Street" with Cagney dashing around trying to put a show together in the face of nearly insurmountable obstacles. A couple of women keep insulting each other because they want to marry him, or clean his clock while divorcing him. Every movement is made at the speed of light. He discovers his new star -- Ruby Keeler -- when he spots his devoted and wholly instrumental secretary without her glasses. The numbers were staged by Busby Berkeley. And what numbers! The first, "At the Honeymoon Hotel" is a kind of sketch of Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler checking into a hotel where everyone's name seems to be Smith and trying to consummate their marriage despite numerous interruptions by family, strangers, and a demented midget. The vocals are done in Sprechgesang. I never realized so many words rhymed with "hotel." They even work in "New Rochelle." It's all pretty suggestive.It was during the second number, "By A Waterfall," that I realized how deeply in love with Ruby Keeler I was. Oh, sure, she can't sing and she can't act, and when she's dancing with those hoof-like feet she seems to be stomping a scurrying horde of roaches -- but she can't sing, can't act, and can't dance, so EARNESTLY. She's so awesomely winsome. Any normal man would want to rush up to her and hug her -- before she gets too sweaty -- and whisper reassuring things to her like, "Don't worry, Darling, talent isn't all it's cracked up to be." About this number. You have to be prepared for it. What I mean is, don't do any psychedelic substances before you watch it. It's performed entirely in the water, sometimes under it, a kind of pro-dromal symptom that would be followed ten years later by a full-blown Esther Williams attack.Several dozen young ladies are dressed in tight skimpy costumes, diving around, doing synchronized swimming, betimes shot from overhead, sometimes forming a pair of writhing snakes that then morph without a lot of to-do into an ovocyte being penetrated by a snake with a big head before, thrillingly, joyously, all the swimmers coalesce into a blastocyte with a big smile on it. As a finale, they held up coordinated placards that, taken together, became a remarkably nuanced portrait of Cedric the Entertainer. I found the rich use of impasto compelling. Or was it all in my mind? I think that was before the swimming girls formed the chrysanthemum, or maybe it was after. One of the shots is truly memorable in its own filthy way. It's done from underwater with the camera aimed straight up between a dozen spread thighs with Ruby Keeler swimming between them and trying to smile at the lens. She also tries to smile -- and to keep from blinking -- while a Niagara of water cascades onto her tiny head and shoulders. I had to pop my ears after seeing it.The ultimate number is a patriotic and thoroughly tawdry sketch of Jimmy Cagney as a sailor in a Chinese whorehouse "lookin' for my Shanghai Lil." It violates every code in the book -- prostitution, drunkenness, opium, bar room brawls -- only to pull itself together at the end and allow Cagney to smuggle Keeler aboard a battleship dressed in a sailor suit. Her Siniticized version of English is endearing. "Me love you long time!" No -- wait. Well, I told you I was confused.