This is part of the Hollywood Babylon: Early Talkies before the Censor of pre-Code films at the BFI. The pre-Code movies included in the blog are recommended by the London Film Festival programmer Clyde Jeavons. The film also screens on May 2nd and will be introduced by Mike Mashon. Details here.
Chicago Reader review:
The great Depression musical, produced by Warner Brothers as a follow-up to Forty-Second Street. If Forty-Second Street was an agreeable sketch, this one is the Sistine Chapel, an insanely overproduced extravaganza that gave Busby Berkeley his first chance to really cut loose. A zillion chorus girls playing electric violins decorate "The Shadow Waltz"; "Pettin' in the Park" is an unbridled voyeuristic fantasy that rivals Michael Powell's Peeping Tom in perversity. Ginger Rogers sings "We're in the Money" in pig latin, and—to give the enterprise a noble touch—the plight of the unemployed veteran is explored in "Remember the Forgotten Man." With Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Joan Blondell, Warren William, Aline MacMahon, Sterling Holloway, Guy Kibbee, and Ned Sparks; Mervyn LeRoy directed the dialogue passages.
Dave Kehr
Here is that 'Pettin' in the Park' extract.
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