"Gold Diggers of 1933) opens with Ginger Rogers singing as part of a bevy of chorus girls. Then it switches to an apartment shared by three others in that show, bemoaning how tough it is to get a job. It's the depression, and it colors every aspect of the story. (Another film about the backstage lives of actresses will follow in 1937--"Stage Door", also starring Ginger Rogers, is a better film, but both are worth watching.)The three women are played by Ruby Keeler, Joan Blondell, and Aline MacMahon. Just when they are at their lowest, there is hope of a new revue--if only they can find financing. The funding finally comes from a surprising source, and the film launches into a number of parallel love stories that develop as the show gets off the ground.The rest of the cast is talented, including Dick Powell, who is well suited for the revue format. A large portion of the film is consumed by Busby Berkley extravaganza pieces that deserve to be seen for their own historical significance. The final number is driven by a beautiful piece of music, "My Forgotten Man", a lament for the victims of the economy, especially those who served as doughboys in WWI. It's a jazz march with gospel overtones--a very powerful piece of music, accompanied by scenes of soup lines filled with former heroes."Gold Diggers" is also notable for its pre-Code titillations, like the obligatory stocking shots and the racy implications of nudity, in silhouette.

Like many of the movies involving Busby Berkeley, the impact made on viewers by GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 likely will be counter-intuitive. Other than being promised several times earlier in the story, Berkeley's closing ballad of The Forgotten Man has merely a tenuous relationship to the previous 95 percent of this film. Yet it catches the essence not only of its fictional world, but also the flavor of the atrocities waged against ordinary Americans by the Hoover Administration in the early 1930s, as well as the Corporate-purchased U.S. Administrations and Congresses of the 21st Century, which have allowed a concentration of wealth that now exceeds that prompting Theodore Roosevelt to bust the trusts of the Robber Barons even before Teddy's cousin Franklin socialized much of the American economy. Perhaps Berkeley's chief accomplishment was to get his truth into a format entertaining enough to win over not only the public well off enough to be able to spare a dime for the movies, but also the suits at Warner Brothers (though they admittedly WERE notoriously cheap, and consequently always on the look-out for anything sensational). Michael Moore's tirades of today cannot hold a candle to the subtly subversive power of this GOLD DIGGERS, which features sexy girls socking it to the rich guys before standing up and shouting out for their own "forgotten men."

While "42nd Street" gets most of the acclaim today I think that "Gold Diggers of 1933" may be the best all-around effort among the Busby Berkeley musicals. The story concerns a Boston blue blood songwriter who finances a Broadway show and ends up taking the stage at the last minute. However, when his brother hears about his undignified behaviour he comes to town in order to put an end to his newfound career & romance.The cast is a fine one which produces several entertaining performances. A number of the actors are "42nd Street" alumni, including Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Guy Kibbee, Ned Sparks & Ginger Rogers. Warren William, Joan Blondell & Aline MacMahon join them to make up an enviable cast.Mervyn LeRoy was in the director's chair and he did a pretty good job but the obvious attraction here is Busby Berkeley's peerless musical numbers featuring the music of Warren & Dubin. From the opening number "We're in the Money" to the visual splendour of "Pettin' in the Park" & "The Shadow Waltz" it's clear that we're seeing and hearing something special. However, I question the use of "Remember My Forgotten Man" as the closer since I consider it the weakest and least 'fun' of the numbers.Minor complaints aside, "Gold Diggers of 1933" is an entertaining musical containing some stellar work from Busby Berkeley along with catchy songs from Warren & Dubin. Unlike some of the other Berkeley musicals the story here is more than just an excuse to show some musical numbers, which I think elevates it above the pack.

This is supposed to be a pseudo-remake of 1929's "Gold Diggers of Broadway", except in the four year interim the Great Depression is in full swing and our gold diggers have hit on bad times like everyone else. The second Berkeley film in the Warner series of musicals starts off with Ginger Rogers singing "We're in the Money" in an outrageous number in which the chorus girls are all dressed in over-sized coins. As Ginger sings part of the number in pig-Latin, the whole thing seems surreal, and in a way it is. The sheriff breaks in on the number to repossess everything on the set to settle the debts of the show's producer, and the gold diggers are out of work again. I don't know why I keep calling them gold diggers, because this cadre of chorines are just looking for steady work. They have abandoned all hope of getting millionaire husbands to take them away from all of this.Brad Roberts (Dick Powell) comes to their rescue when he comes up with both the money and the songs for a new show that broke but creative producer Barney Hopkins (Ned Sparks) has in mind. Thinking that Brad is penniless like the rest of them, the girls at first think Brad is playing a tasteless joke before he produces the 15K, and that he is a bank robber on the run afterwards. This is reinforced by his refusal to make any personal appearance in the show. In fact Brad is a young man from a wealthy New England family who is hiding his work in the theatre from his snobbish old-money relatives who soon surface to reclaim him in the person of his brother, Lawrence (Warren William), and the family lawyer (Guy Kibbee). When they find out Brad is planning to marry one of the girls (Ruby Keeler), Brad's brother decides to find the girl, flash his cash, and thus romance her himself, since he presumes she is a gold digger. He figures this will prove to Brad just what kind of girl he has fallen for. Unfortunately, Brad's brother doesn't know what she looks like. And that's where the fun starts.There's some great pre-code comedy here particularly from Joan Blondell, not to mention her stirring performance of "Forgotten Man" about World War I soldiers who are now marching in Depression Era bread lines. Also not to be missed is "Shadow Waltz" with the chorus girls playing fake fluorescent violins that would occasionally short out and shock the girls.Guy Kibbee and Aline McMahon are both terrifically funny and touching in one of the film's subplots as two people who find genuine love later in life than they may have wanted and originally planned. They are basically reprising the roles played by Albert Gran and Winnie Lightner in Gold Diggers of Broadway. However, Aline MacMahon has a subtle even homespun brand of humor versus Lightner's brash style.As in The Gold Diggers of Broadway, the film ends with the show itself, but these are two entirely different shows for two entirely different eras. The 1929 film ends with chorus girls parading around in elaborate costumes and decorated by two-strip Technicolor while acrobats and tap dancers strut their exhilarated stuff. The 1933 film ends with a number about forgotten men marching both off to war and back to bread lines in spartan black and white. A powerful ending for a great piece of entertainment.