GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 is screening as part of pre-Hays Code series at Film Forum
GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Friday, July 22, 1:00, 4:35, and 8:10
Series continues through August 11
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
Hitting a little too close to home these days, Gold Diggers of 1933 is a depression-era musical directed by Mervyn LeRoy (Little Caesar, Mister Roberts) and featuring dance numbers choreographed by Busby Berkeley. Polly Parker (Ruby Keeler), Trixie Lorraine (Aline MacMahon), Carol King (Joan Blondell), and Fay Fortune (Ginger Rogers) are four out-of-work actresses desperate to find a job on Broadway. When cigar-chomping producer Barney Hopkins (Ned Sparks) teams up with newcomer Brad Roberts (Dick Powell) to create a show about the Great Depression itself, the women get excited about the possibility of getting back on the Great White Way, but mistaken identity, financing problems, and class warfare — in the form of wealthy old-money barons Lawrence Bradford (Warren William) and Faneul H. Peabody (Guy Kibbee) — threaten the show and their love lives. Gold Diggers of 1933 is screening at Film Forum on July 22 in a double feature with Frank Tuttle’s Roman Scandals as part of the series “Essential Pre-Code,” which continues through August 11 with films made immediately prior to the enactment of the values-based Hays Code in 1930s Hollywood, including Rouben Moumalian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Cecil B. DeMille’s The Sign of the Cross, Josef von Sternberg’s Blonde Venus, Howard Hawks’s Scarface, Ernst Lubitsch’s Trouble in Paradise, and Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s King Kong (bestiality!), nearly all of which are part of double or triple features. Oh, and if you’re wondering why Gold Diggers made the cut here, the “Pettin’ in the Park” number should tell you all you need to know.