Cinema
Gold Diggers of 1933
Mervyn LeRoy · 1933
Synopsis
New York, during the Depression. On the eve of the opening night, the sheriff seizes the costumes and sets of an unpaid revue. Three out-of-work chorus girls, Polly, Carol and Trixie, share an apartment. The producer Barney Hopkins wants to stage a show about the crisis, but money is short. Their neighbour Brad, a pianist and composer in love with Polly, offers fifteen thousand dollars and writes the songs, while refusing to go on stage and staying evasive about his past, to the point that the girls think he is dishonest.
Context
The numbers were staged and filmed by Busby Berkeley, who had no training in dance and had learned to order mass movements by organising military parades during the Great War. He conceived his figures as seen from above, having holes cut in the ceilings to suspend the camera. The Long Beach earthquake, on 10 March 1933, shook the set during one of the numbers: Berkeley hung on to his crane with one hand and had the dancers sit down until the doors were opened to let daylight in.
Who it is for
A musical of an hour and thirty-six minutes, several numbers of which are filmed from directly overhead.
Prizes and reception
Warner's biggest hit of 1933, added in 2003 to the United States National Film Registry.
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