One of the problems with movies in the early 30s was that the talkie era overlapped with and competed with Broadway, Vaudeville, and other stage productions. Just by the subject matter of a lot of movies you can tell that Broadway and off-Broadway was still very popular, hence you have movies that had large chunks of it dedicated to theater productions that were being made within the movie such as "42nd St.", "Murder at the Vanities", "Footlight Parade," "Glorifying the American Girl," and more. It was as if they were trying to have the best of both worlds: talking films and Broadway productions. In most cases it was an overall negative and instead of having the best of both worlds, they just did a disservice to both worlds. That is especially true for this movie. It seemed this movie was a pretext for a lousy play with terrible singing, and Joan Blondell was the worst offender.
Speaking of Joan Blondell; 1934 was a bad year for her. She was in some awful movies with some awful roles*. In this movie she played an actress who wasn't above sleeping in a man's bed to make it seem like he was two-timing. Even that behavior wasn't worse than her singing.
The entire first half of "Dames" was just a set up for a theater production. A man named Horace Hemingway (Guy Kibbee) was summoned by his eccentric, millionaire cousin-in-law, Ezra Ounce (Hugh Herbert), to discuss his fortune and how he planned to divy it out. Like in most movies with a rich progenitor, everyone sucked up to him because of his wealth.
Ezra planned on giving Horace and his family $10M provided they were morally upright and provided they didn't associate with the outcast James 'Jimmy' Higgens (Dick Powell) who was considered "bad fruit" because he was into theater. Ezra despised immorality and he saw that it was mostly propagated on stage. He even started an organization called the Ounce Foundation for the Elevation of American Morals.
Horace and his wife Mathilda (Zasu Pitts) would capitulate to any of Ezra's demands including joining his association and distancing themselves from cousin Jimmy (the playwright). They didn't associate with Jimmy, but what they didn't know was that their daughter Barbara (Ruby Keeler) was dating Jimmy (they were thirteenth cousins per Jimmy).
So began the quick march toward Jimmy Higgen's production titled "Dames."
When musical numbers from a play within the actual movie run 10 to 20 to 30 minutes, that is a sign to me that they don't even have a full movie so they're just filling time with content that people may like. I've said it regarding other movies and I'm saying it again, it is a terrible way to make a movie. It's one thing to make a movie a musical; it's another thing to insert musical numbers from a play into the movie as though they're congruent with the plot when they're not.
*None worse than "Smarty." In that movie she bounced from husband to husband, finally landing on the first one (Warren William), who beat her and she liked it.
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Speaking of Joan Blondell; 1934 was a bad year for her. She was in some awful movies with some awful roles*. In this movie she played an actress who wasn't above sleeping in a man's bed to make it seem like he was two-timing. Even that behavior wasn't worse than her singing.
The entire first half of "Dames" was just a set up for a theater production. A man named Horace Hemingway (Guy Kibbee) was summoned by his eccentric, millionaire cousin-in-law, Ezra Ounce (Hugh Herbert), to discuss his fortune and how he planned to divy it out. Like in most movies with a rich progenitor, everyone sucked up to him because of his wealth.
Ezra planned on giving Horace and his family $10M provided they were morally upright and provided they didn't associate with the outcast James 'Jimmy' Higgens (Dick Powell) who was considered "bad fruit" because he was into theater. Ezra despised immorality and he saw that it was mostly propagated on stage. He even started an organization called the Ounce Foundation for the Elevation of American Morals.
Horace and his wife Mathilda (Zasu Pitts) would capitulate to any of Ezra's demands including joining his association and distancing themselves from cousin Jimmy (the playwright). They didn't associate with Jimmy, but what they didn't know was that their daughter Barbara (Ruby Keeler) was dating Jimmy (they were thirteenth cousins per Jimmy).
So began the quick march toward Jimmy Higgen's production titled "Dames."
When musical numbers from a play within the actual movie run 10 to 20 to 30 minutes, that is a sign to me that they don't even have a full movie so they're just filling time with content that people may like. I've said it regarding other movies and I'm saying it again, it is a terrible way to make a movie. It's one thing to make a movie a musical; it's another thing to insert musical numbers from a play into the movie as though they're congruent with the plot when they're not.
*None worse than "Smarty." In that movie she bounced from husband to husband, finally landing on the first one (Warren William), who beat her and she liked it.
Free on Odnoklassniki.