I think the brothers Warner were playing a little joke there. But what's even more unusual is that the brief clip shows him in a scene with Frank McHugh who plays another Cagney assistant in Footlight Parade.
#HONEYMOON HOTEL FOOTLIGHT PARADE MOVIE#
And in a scene at the beginning of the film, producer Guy Kibbee takes Cagney to a movie theater where they are showing a B western starring John Wayne. John Garfield is seen briefly in the Shanghai Lil number. Look for Dorothy Lamour and Ann Sothern in the chorus as per the IMDb pages for both of them. Like in Blonde Crazy, she's the one with the real brains in that duo and it's her quick thinking that bails him out of some domestic problems he has on top of his theatrical ones. Joan Blondell is Cagney's no nonsense girl Friday at the theater. Ruby sings and dances with Powell in the last two and she partners with James Cagney in my favorite number from Footlight Parade, Shanghai Lil. Dick Powell gets to sing three songs in Footlight Parade, Ah the Moon is Here, Honeymoon Hotel, and By a Waterfall, the last two with Ruby Keeler further cementing that screen team.
_NRFPT_01.jpg "honeymoon hotel footlight parade")
Of course the staging of these Busby Berkeley extravaganzas on the stage of a movie palace defies all logic and reason. He wished he'd done a few more musicals in his career and I wish he had. In his retirement Cagney said that while he screened his few and far between musicals a lot, he could barely be bothered with some of his straight dramatic films. It gives James Cagney a chance to display some of his versatility as a dancer as well as a tough guy. Footlight Parade is my favorite Busby Berkeley film. Some other competitors get wind of it and the competition is on. Stage live relevant prologues to the movies that are being shown at the various movie theaters that are springing up overnight from the old theaters. In an effort to stimulate the show business economy and his own personal economy, out of work theater director James Cagney comes up with a brilliant idea.
Those behind the curtains were hit as bad as those in front. The Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Depression following almost ruined the American Musical Theater, in fact it was the final death blow to vaudeville.
0 kommentar(er)
