This is a fantastic film that saves its best for last. It starts off as a good Cagney-Blondell pairing, with him playing a theater producer whose job is in trouble with the advent of "talkies", and her playing his hardworking, intelligent secretary. It ends with a couple of absolutely STUNNING musical numbers choreographed by Busby Berkeley – 'By a Waterfall' and 'Shanghai Lil'. The sets are spectacular, as are the visual effects Berkeley creates with overhead camera shots – just have a look on youtube. Cagney is a delight to watch in his film, which has him in a role different from his usual gangster typecasting. He's marvelously light on his feet, both when he shows performers how it's done early in the movie, and then later when he 'fills in' for a guy who has had too much to drink to perform 'Shanghai Lil', which is set in a Chinese den of iniquity. The banter and comedy throughout the movie keeps it entertaining, with the exception of Hugh Herbert, who's in a whiny, annoying role. There's also lots of 1933 eye candy here, with dancer's legs, skimpy outfits, and bathing suits abounding, helped along by the movie being pre-Code. Related to that and as a small side note, I thought it was funny to see Claire Dodd, wide- eyed, reading a book called "Naughty Stories" with a vamp on the cover.As for the other leads, Dick Powell is not my favorite but he's passable, and Ruby Keeler is a joy, playing a cute secretary who transforms into a performer. There are some cringe-inducing moments, including Keeler as an Asian woman during 'Shanghai Lil, singing some broken English lyrics which may make you think of the cliché 'me love you long time' (one of the actual lines: "I miss you very much, a long time, I think that you no love me still"). Earlier in the film, Cagney will brainstorm for themes in his musicals and hit upon one with "African slaves" (after other wacky ideas, e.g. "Frankenstein"), and later, after seeing a bunch of African-American kids playing in the water from a fire hydrant, he'll quip "That's what (we) need - a modern waterfall splashing on beautiful white bodies." You have to forgive the film for those transgressions, which are relatively small for the time period. Overall – very entertaining and an absolute blast in some places, with Cagney and Berkeley turning in outstanding work. Great film.

Great showstoppers. Jimmy hoofing it up a storm, nine years before his boffo "Yankee Doodle Dandy". Ruby Keeler always excellent; superb. Joan Blondell -- spoiler -- gets Jimmy in the end, after she kicks his cheap trashy gold-digger, literally, to the curb, lol. Hugh Herbert with the famous hand-twirling -- always a delight. Jimmy's friend Frank McHugh terribly whiny as the dance director, and his wearing that huge cat's tail is totally hilarious. Cat number just divine, so is waterfall number. Honeymoon number full of pre-code innuendoes, but of course there is the justice of the peace just off the lobby. Berkeley always excellent, plus he is one of the cast. Look for him. 12/10

I don't have anything original to add to the justified encomia others have offered for this remarkable movie.Watching it again tonight, I was, however, struck yet once again by the genius of Busby Berkeley in staging the last three numbers, the "prologues." Most remarkable of a very remarkable trio for me is "By a waterfall." It just keeps building and building and building. Yes, of course, some of the shots of the women in the water are very erotic. It was 1933, after all, and before the Hayes Code. Berkeley and Warner Brothers understood that pretty women posed erotically had a real appeal to men, But these erotic poses are not JUST erotic poses. They keep building and building and building. What will he do next, you wonder? Oh, that. But "that" is even more incredible than what has come before. By the time you get to the end of this number, you're exhausted, not just physically and erotically, but imaginatively as well. How could anyone have maintained and built on that suspense for 10 whole minutes? I can't tell you, but he did.Third of the three prologues, "Shanghai Lil," is definitely not something that could have been filmed the same way just a year or two later when the Production Code was put in force. We see an opium den, a lot of prostitutes, at least one interracial couple, etc. Having watched it again tonight, I will add that this is a strange "musical." There is almost no music for the first hour and a half. It's all in the three closing numbers. But what numbers!

I have reviewed more James Cagney movies on this site than any other actor/actress. Now, after 8 odd years of being a IMDb reviewer, I have finally got around to reviewing my ultimate favourite James Cagney movie.This was the first musical Cagney had been allowed to star in as Jack Warner saw only the potential in Cagney's ability to play the tough guy. Cagney had learnt to dance in the 20's whilst appearing in countless vaudeville productions and always preferred to do musicals whenever the opportunity presented itself.Although Footlight Parade was Cagney's first musical movie, it wasn't the first time audiences had seen the man shake a shoe. He had danced in a short but memorable scene in the drama Other Men's Women (1931) and danced in a couple of scenes in Taxi! (1932) most notably in a dance competition competing against George Raft.It may have been these scenes that convinced the studio brass that Cagney was a viable musical commodity too.Footlight Parade reunites Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler and genius choreographer Busby Berkeley all veterans of Warner Brothers two other musical smash hits of that year 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933.The whole main cast list of this wonderful movie also includes all the very best actors that Warner had on their books at the time. Joan Blondell, Guy Kibbee, Ruth Donnelly, Frank McHugh, Hugh Herbert and Claire Dodd.Chester Kent, (Cagney), is a producer of musical Comedy shows who's fortunes have been blighted by two main developments. The crash of '29 which saw the demand for expensive and lavish productions dwindle and a new gimmick from Hollywood - Talking Pictures.His showbiz backers Frazer & Gould, (Arthur Hohl & Guy Kibbee respectively), take Kent to the local movie theatre to show them why they're no longer doing the big shows and why they're making the move to become movie exhibitors. When the movie they are watching ends, (which incidentally is The Telegraph Trail starring John Wayne and also stars Frank McHugh). A bevy of dancers take to the stage in a routine that Frazer and Gould describe as a prologue a themed dance to accompany the preceding picture.Kent starts to produce these prologues for Frazer and Gould knowing that other movie exhibitors will pay good money for these ready made prologues rather then spending more money to put them on themselves.Kent is shown as a workaholic who seldom goes home and is dedicated to his job. However, his world is not as idyllic as he would think it. His assistant Harry Thompson, (Gordon Westcott), is actually spying for a rival prologue company and giving the competitors Kents prologue ideas and Frazer and Gould are cooking the books to their own advantage. In fact Kent's one true ally is his secretary and girl Friday Nanette 'Nan' Prescott, (Joan Blondell), who's so head over heels in love with Kent that her loyalty is unswerving but Kent's too wrapped up in business to notice.After reading a headline regarding the fate of un produced musical shows, Kent decides that they'll be transferred into prologues giving the audience a 20 minute musical comedy and a talking picture all for 50 cents. A business man with a string of movie theatres have offered him three prologues at three of his theatres in three days and if they're a success then a contract for forty theatres across the region is theirs.In order to ensure his ideas are not given to the rival prologue company, he orders a blockade of his studio, no one in and no one out for three days to ensure secrecy and originality.The real treat of Footlight Parade are the three prologues themselves which dominate the final half of the movie. 'Honeymoon Hotel' in which Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler elope, get married and spend their wedding night in the hotel renown for turning virgin brides into wives, all to the wonderful risqué music and lyrics of Harry Warren and Al Dubin.Then follows 'By A Waterfall' which is by far the most visual stunning of the three with Busby Berkeley doing what he does best, a water ballet with some great kaleidoscopic overhead shots. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Berkely was a genius and one day I'd love to see this sequence converted to 3D and perhaps full Technicolour. Berkely was so far ahead of his time and real 3D was invented just so we can convert Berkeley's sequences to it. I'd do it myself if I could though I have neither the money, knowledge or the technology to do so. Shame otherwise it would be done tomorrow.The final Prologue is 'Shanghai Lil' which sees Cagney take the role of a sailor searching for his oriental prostitute girlfriend in a bar come opium den. All of which is dazzling.Needless to say the shows go over big and Kent and the troupe get the contracts.Mention has to be given to Dick Powell for THAT voice, Keeler for THOSE feet, Frank McHugh giving us some comic relieve as a cynical and inept dance director, Claire Dodd as a social climbing tramp that gloms on to Kent in the hopes of ensnaring him into a honey trap. Ruth Donnelly as Goulds Money grabbing wife and Hugh Herbert as the fussy censor that ensures that Kent's prologues doesn't offend against common decency.Speaking of censorship, Footlight Parade contains some of the most riskiest dialogue and content that I've ever seen in a pre-code film and was probably solely responsible for the rigid enforcement of the production code the following year. All innocent now, but back in 1933, it must have had chins on the carpet. However, that's all part of it's charm.Footlight Parade is a triumph in every way thanks mainly to Cagney and Berkeley.Enjoy!