Gold Diggers of 1933

Yeah, I don't even have to add the date in parentheses. Back then, musicals about stage productions were sickeningly common, and some titles had dates as the only way to distinguish them from others. This one, directed by Mervyn LeRoy, could be taken as a companion piece to Footlight Parade and/or 42nd Street, involving many of the same names in the same year.

What makes GDo1933 stand out, not just among musicals but among non-dramas at the time, is that it does not try to make the audience forget the Depression. Opening number "We're in the Money" gets interrupted due to the inability of the stage director (Ned Sparks) to pay bills. Soon after, three dancers -- amusingly named Carol King (Joan Blondell), Trixie (Aline McMahon), and Polly (Ruby Keeler) -- are sharing an apartment, hunger, and sporadic contact with frenemy Fay (Ginger Rogers). Fortunately, Polly's neighboring crush, undiscovered composer/pianist/singer Brad (Dick Powell), agrees to give not just his talent but considerable startup funds to the next show. Where did he get this money, and why does he insist on remaining a mystery? You can probably guess....

Shall We Dance (1937)

At one time, I would have called musicals my favorite film genre. Alas, it gets harder and harder to find promising ones I haven't seen already. Most musicals from the last few decades are either made with kids in mind or dark in tone with nearly constant singing. The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers era has neither in abundance, but their works can have little good to offer besides dancing. I had no guarantee that I would get anything halfway new out of continuing to watch them.

Here Astaire plays a ballet star with a taste for tap dancing, whose stage name "Petrov" carries a different air from birth name Peter P. Peters. Like in Swing Time, he wants to marry a woman he knows almost nothing about, in this case tap dancer Linda Keene (Rogers), who feels ready to resign and never meet another dancing man. Petrov pulls strings with his unknowing, stodgy manager Jeffrey (Edward Everett Horton) to get on the same cruise as Keene. When an aggressive suitor pursues Petrov, Jeffrey tells her that Petrov has been secretly married for years. Word spreads on the ship...until irresponsible papers all over declare that Petrov and Keene are not only married but expecting, which makes an already awkward courtship even more so.