Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935)
Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935)
While Busby Berkeley provided only the choreography for the Mervyn LeRoy directed Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) he directed this Musical and provided its dance direction which earned him his first Academy Award nomination; his “Lullaby of Broadway” number which includes the Harry Warren-Al Dubin Oscar winning Song performed by Winifred Shaw is a spectacle featuring dozens of choreographed pianos! The story written by Robert Lord (One Way Passage (1932)) and Peter Milne with a screenplay by Milne and Manuel Seff is typically silly with enough hijinks and romance to move things along through the musical numbers which include “I’m Goin’ Shoppin’ With You” and the big finale “The Words Are In My Heart”.
Dick Powell and Gloria Stewart sing perform and provide one romantic pairing – he’s a desk clerk in medical school she’s a sheltered heiress staying at the lavishly appointed Wentworth Plaza hotel for the summer season which culminates in a milk fund charity show; Dorothy Dare and Frank McHugh are another – she’s the hotel’s hostess who was originally engaged to Powell’s character he’s Stewart’s four time divorced brother and son to Alice Brady’s multi-millionaire tightwad mother. She and Stewart’s original fiancĂ© – Hugh Herbert as an even wealthier expert on the history of snuff – are harassed and/or sponged off of by Adolphe Menjou’s deadbeat eccentric show producer Nicolai Nicoleff his set designer (Joseph Cawthorn) the hotel’s streetwise stenographer (Glenda Farrell) and even its manager (Grant Mitchell). Singer Shaw plays the cigarette counter girl.
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