Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Micitype Pretty Good

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

richspenc I loved this film. Not only because Gloria Stewart was in it, whiched helped me love it even further, but the music numbers were amazing and had good humor and a good story. The only thing I could say was wrong was that the wonderful Ruby Keeler wasn't also in the film, but Gloria Stewart is also wonderful. I guess Dick Powell can only have one love interest at a time. The story was very good with a good cast working at a fancy resort. Powell meets Gloria and her severely penny pinching mother Alice Brady, who gives 5 bellhops one quarter between all of them. That today would be like $3 split between five people, or a 60 or 70 cent tip for each bellhop, and remember the supervisors wanted a piece of the tips too. Not good pay. That for carrying up her royal heiness's mass luggage (that line I said there, sort of a "Spaceballs" reference). Alice initially trusts Powell to escort Gloria to the department store. Powell and Gloria then go on a shopping spree, along to the tune "I'm going shopping with you" and run up a bill much bigger than they were supposed to, which causes Alice to faint. She's realized now Powell and Gloria developed a romantic interest in each other, and that is not what Alice wanted. All good films need someone though who's not sweet and nice (as long as it's not the heroine) so the film doesn't get saccharine, and Alice was it here. I liked Alice's raging "did I hear you say.. Honeymoon!!?". She reminded me of Cruella the way she said that. Gloria's flamboyant brother Frank Farrell (well remembered as the whiny "it just can't be done!" assistant director in "Footlight parade") is back here a little more mellowed out and a lot more flamboyant, but still makes it obvious he's girl crazy. His "flutter flutter" scene was amusing after his successful date with beauty Glenda Farrel. Eccentric yet theatrically talented Adolphe Menjou joins the hotel too. He was not my favorite character in this film but he was not as annoying as some of the dramatic characters in Busby's slump period films (such as the annoying band players and French ballet teacher in the not so good "Gold diggers in Paris"). Gloria and the two musical numbers in this film were so amazing and beautiful, which played a big help in making this film better than Busby's 3 slump films "Hollywood hotel", "Varsity show", and "Gold diggers Paris". Gloria and Powell have a very nice passionate romantic scene on a boat on a lake. The best, most wonderful part comes soon next in the delightful and amazing song "The words are in my heart". 15-20 beautiful girls on shiny white grand pianos sliding around and forming more great Busby patterns and shapes while the girls play the beautiful music. Some of the piano patterned shapes were taken from the "By a waterfall" number in "Footlight parade" such as the snake patterns and the swirl patterns, where then it was the swimming girls, and here it's the girls on the pianos. The pattern work though was fabulous, and the guys under those pianos being able to move them around so smoothly and timely like that could not have been any easy task. Even the girls' dancing by the pianos was very nice in the shadowy half dark with the shining light from the big open doorway behind them which created a eerie beauty of its own. Then the piano sections were bookended by three beauties playing a piano in a nice living room in beautiful floor length dresses before climbing the stairs at the end. Then, a model on the piano (zooming in at the end, zooming out at the beginning ) at closer view being a pretty spot by a pond under a blossom tree with Powell and the gorgeous Gloria sitting under it in her beautiful very large ruffled dress, Powell singing to Gloria, Gloria looking like an angel, which completes the wonderful golden bookends to this amazing number. The other fabulous umber, "Lullaby of Broadway " tells an exciting tale of a girl's day in the city through song and dance. Then a spoiler near the end of the number I won't reveal above the "Spoiler below" section below which makes the number even greater and tear jerking. SPOILER BELOW"Lullaby of Broadway" was fabulous due to the girl, the story, and about 100 or more very talented dancers in a big hall tap dancing so well and in such complete unison. I loved that sound of so many shoes tapping together in such skilled patterns along with some amazing dance moves. Dick Powell and the beautiful Lullaby girl watched, then danced with all of the others wonderfully, until near the end when the number has a big climatic fall (literally). What makes the "Lullaby of Broadway" number even more amazing and tugging at the heart strings was the moment after the climax where we get what started to look like an "it was all a dream" session, but just then surprises us. I loved it. Overall, this film's fantastic.

weezeralfalfa This was the last released of 5 films currently included in a Busby Berkeley films collection, consisting of Warners films released between 1933-35. So far, I've only seen "Dames", along with this one. "Dames" clearly was more entertaining than this one, to me. Some previous reviewers have come to a similar conclusion comparing this film to others in the series. The first approximately hour, before the 2 big musical production numbers is especially weak in entertainment value. Both films save the 2 big productions until the last part of the film. Thus, a boring or too inane screen play will make you want to hurry out of the theater before the best parts. In Berkeley's later 3 films costarring Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, one of the big production numbers occurred midway in the film, and there were often smaller musical numbers early on. I consider that a better, and safer, format. This film contains some commonalities and differences from the other 4 films in this series. Although Busby was the chief choreographer for all, each of these films had a different director. This is the only one of the 5 in which Busby was also the overall director. All featured Dick Powell as the male lead or co-lead and main male soloist, and all were scored by the composer-lyricist team of Harry Warren and Al Dubin. This film includes one of their best remembered songs : "The Lullaby of Broadway", used as the featured song in one of the big production numbers. However, it's not a love song. "Dames" includes another of their best remembered: "I Only Have Eyes For You", which was used as a featured love song in an informal setting, as well as in one of the later big productions. This is the only one of the 5 that was released after the Hays commission censorship fully kicked in, around mid-'34. It's also the only one that lacks Ruby Keeler as Powell's ingénue musical girlfriend. It also lacks the charismatic Joan Blondell, who was an important character in several others of the series(and would soon marry Dick Powell). It also lacks Ginger Rogers, who was another significant character in several of these films. In their places , we have only Gloria Stewart. Gloria developed many talents over the years. However, she had no appreciable singing or dancing talent at this time, and appears to have little chemistry with Dick Powell. Thus, she comes across as just another pretty face, among many in this film, whom Powell happens to single out as his girlfriend. Gloria's last film role, some 60 years later, is the one present audiences most remember: as 100 year-old Rose, in "Titanic". Although Gloria lived to be 100, she was actually 86 when this role was shot.Middle-aged Hugh Herbert returned from several other films in this series to reprise his Ed Wynn-like humor. However, in place of Fred Mertz-like Guy Kibbee, as another older male comedic character, we have the quite different Adolphe Menjou, who enjoys shouting at people. He could be an effective part of the comedy, as in the later "You Were Never Lovelier". However, here, both he and Alice Brady, as Gloria's super-rich mother, with her periodic hysterics over her finances or daughter's romantic choices, often come across as more irritating than funny.The two main musical productions consist of 1)many chorus girls supposedly each playing or cavorting around an identical piano, or 2)many male and female dancers dancing in unison, emphasizing the rhythmic sound of their feet. To me, these were far less interesting than the multiple kaleidoscopic patterns formed by the chorus girls, often seen in overhead projections, and other unusual features of the productions in "Dames", and some of the other films in this series. However, the segment with the apparently undulating 2 lines of pianos is an impressive accomplishment. As usual, Busby made the most of sharply contrasting black and white or neon in his musical productions. He would eventually get a chance to choreograph in color, albeit not until his career was in steep decline. "The Gang's All Here", with Carmen Miranda, is probably his first choreography in color. It certainly most clearly bears the stamp of classic '30s Warners Busby, among the half dozen Busby-choreographed color films I've seen. In the early '50s, he did the choreography for Esther Williams' "Million Dollar Mermaid" water ballets, having previously choreographed a water ballet in "Footlight Parade": part of the present film series. During this period, he also did the choreography for several of Jane Powell's musical comedies. Then, after a decade of no film credits, his last credited choreography was for the Doris Day-starring "Billy Rose's Jumbo": a most underrated musical comedy.

Neil Doyle Shot in crisp B&W with some lavishly designed sets and brilliant lighting techniques, the musical numbers in this film shine because of the sheer genius of Busby Berkeley's fantastic routines.The story is thin and silly, but from start to finish it's an entertaining show with Dick Powell and Gloria Stuart in the romantic leads supported by such stalwarts among character actors as Alice Brady, Frank McHugh, Hugh Herbert and Adolphe Menjou. Dorothy Dare and Wini Shaw are added delights.It's the typical boy meets girl story with Powell assigned to be a protective escort (as a business proposition posed by wealthy Alice Brady) whose daughter wants some excitement in her life before promising to marry stuffy Hugh Herbert.But once the songs start spinning and the clever camera work gets going, the viewer will appreciate all the effort that went into this undertaking. Especially striking is the final musical sequence built around "Lullaby of Broadway," first the segment with the white pianos and then the actual dance routine choreographed brilliantly by both Busby and the Warner cameras.Striking talent on display here, worth a peek if you're a fan of the old Warner Brothers musicals. Alice Brady is a riot as the world's stingiest wealthy woman always devising ways to do things on the cheap.

Michael_Elliott Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Boy (Dick Powell) meets girl (Gloria Stuart) story is the backdrop of big musical numbers in this Busby Berkeley directed film. The two leads are wonderful and have some great chemistry and even a couple of the musical numbers are good but these come at the very end. The story is just so underwritten that it's hard to find much entertainment out of this thing. The film isn't really bad but it's not really good either. We've got better romantic comedies from this period and better musicals from this period so this is only recommended for fans of the stars.