Gold Diggers of 1933

Gold Diggers of 1933 is a brisk, funny musical whose strongest pleasure is the confidence of its company. Mervyn LeRoy gives the comedy enough room to breathe without treating the business between numbers as something to apologise for. We recommend it, with a reservation about a romance that becomes rather ordinary beside the livelier performances around it. The film has enough comic talent to keep that weakness from becoming a serious drag.

Joan Blondell’s Carol establishes the right tone: alert, practical and too quick to be easily flattered. There is a useful firmness beneath Blondell’s humour, which keeps the character from becoming merely agreeable company. Aline MacMahon brings a blunter comic energy to Trixie, with less interest in softening a line for the sake of good manners. We laughed at her sharp delivery, and at how little she seems to care about winning our approval. Those performances give the comedy its bite.

Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell, as Polly and Brad, are agreeable presences, though their gentler appeal leaves less to discuss. Keeler’s directness has charm; Powell’s ease makes him pleasant company. The writing by James Seymour and Erwin S. Gelsey is less distinctive when it asks us to invest in romance, and the shifts away from the sharper comedy can feel like a small reduction in ambition. The tenderness is welcome, but some of the exchanges need more personality.

Busby Berkeley’s choreography provides another substantial reason to watch. The elaborate organisation of the numbers has a rhythmic excitement that survives close attention, with pleasure in following how one arrangement gives way to another. We can feel the care taken over the movement without being made to admire the labour behind it. Some passages do grow a little remote, as though their neatness has become more important than the performers. The strongest numbers keep both in view.

Sol Polito’s photography makes the abundance easy to take in, with a clarity that helps the eye follow the performers. Orry-Kelly’s costumes share the comedy’s cheerful appetite for display, and their contribution is fun without distracting from the people wearing them. George Amy’s editing keeps the film moving briskly enough that its weaker passages rarely settle into a prolonged nuisance. It runs 97 minutes, and the pace seldom slackens for long.

Harry Warren and Al Dubin’s music also gives the film room for feelings beyond flirtation and comic impatience. We were moved by Etta Moten’s singing in ‘Remember My Forgotten Man’, where the gravity of the voice demands a different kind of attention. The music can bear that weight without losing the directness that makes the lighter material appealing. That range matters in a film whose dramatic writing is not always as persuasive as its performers.

Within the backstage musical, there is always a risk that the show will make the story look like an inconvenient interval. LeRoy avoids that often enough because Blondell and MacMahon are worth watching without any elaborate accompaniment. Their comic assurance makes the dialogue scenes worth returning to, even after the choreography has expanded our expectations. Choose it for the numbers, and leave room for the women doing the talking.