Movie #228 "Footlight Parade" is not much of a film , but with James Cagney whizzing through the dialogue a mile a minute, you probably can't tell much looking at the number of pages of the script. it is just supposed to be a vehicle to show off cagney's hooting ability along with elaborate busby berkley numbers. cagey plays a director of prologues in the 40s. What's that you ask? Prologues were live presentations that performed on the stage to entertain the audience before the movie. I guess they thought people wouldn't go see just film, and they had these great vaudeville theatres and all this live talent, they decided on doing prologues. It is a cool idea, but little wonder they didn't stay around with how elaborate the production number had to be to compete with the movies to follow, not to mention the price it would cost to mount these. To show you just how flimsy the plot was here, each production number took about 10 minutes or so, and finally after the last one that Cagney had to step in due to the lead's injury ( come on, didn't you guess that one?), he taps off, proposes marriage to his secretary Ann Sothern whom he hardly talked to in the film and went back on stage for his curtain call. Gotta love the oldiies!!!!
Average rating: 3.726
I gave it 3.4.
Footlight Parade
(1933) NR
James Cagney channels Busby Berkeley (who choreographs the stunning, kaleidoscopic dance routines) as a Broadway director who comes up with a scheme to break into movies through, well, stunning, kaleidoscopic dance routines. (Cagney even does some hoofing of his own.) Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell co-star in this musical extravaganza that includes such vintage songs as "Honeymoon Hotel," "Shanghai Lil" and "By a Waterfall."
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