Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
Released by Warner Brothers
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Screenwriters: Erwin Gelsey, James Seymour, David Boehm, Ben Markson
Historical/Industry context
Unlike many musical comedies of this period, Gold Diggers of 1933 confronts the Great Depression head-on. Most 1930s musicals were escapist fare, intended to take people’s minds off the grim economic realities of the day. This one is populated by wealthy characters, to be sure, but also by penniless showpeople who don’t know where their next meal is coming from. The film was produced at the time when a newly-elected Roosevelt administration was seeking to inaugurate the New Deal, and seems to reflect some of the renewed optimism of that period. It was produced at Warner Brothers, using the same Vitaphone process that had been used in making The Jazz Singer (1927). It is, however, relatively free of the technical limitations that crippled filmmakers’ creativity at the very beginning of the talkie revolution.
In a very real sense, this film has two directors. Mervyn LeRoy, who had directed such hard-bitten social dramas as Little Caesar (1931) and I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932) directed the non-musical sequences and received overall credit as the film’s director. But it was choreographer Busby Berkeley who visualized and created the remarkable musical numbers. The year 1933 represented a creative pinnacle for Berkeley, who choreographed Forty-Second Street, Gold Diggers of 1933, and Footlight Parade, three of his acknowledged masterpieces, all in that same remarkable year.
Narrative context
Is this story escapist, or is it social commentary? Is it possible to be both?
It has been observed that the musical numbers could be deleted from this film and the narrative would still make sense. Does that mean that the musical numbers are completely unrelated to the narrative?
How do the characters in this story change during the course of the narrative?
Which (if any) of the characters are stereotypes?
Generic context
It is a convention of the musical comedy genre to have a happy ending, often in the form of a marriage, or even multiple marriages. In what way does this film present a variation on that convention?
In what sense can Berkeley’s elaborate imagery be said to be appropriate to the musical genre?
Musical comedy often overlaps the genre of romantic comedy. What conventions of the romantic comedy can you identify in this film?
Rhetorical context
What is the film’s attitude toward social conditions in the early 1930s?
In what way does the film comment on antagonism between social classes?
The “Forgotten Man” number that closes the show specifically recalls the so-called “Bonus Army” of World War I veterans who marched on Washington to demand payment of veterans’ bonuses that were owed to them. President Hoover had them forcibly dispersed, a move that caused a great many voters to turn against him. How does this number frame its expression of outrage over the treatment of American veterans?
Aesthetic context – Mise en scene
What are the specific visual components of the distinctive Busby Berkeley musical style ? How does he use the camera ? The editing ? The staging of the performers ? How does his cinematic style reflect the aesthetics of the music ?
