One Paragraph Movie Review: The Gold-Diggers of 1933

One hundred and eighty-seventh film: The Gold-Diggers of 1933, made in that year. A film produced just prior to the prudish Hays Code being established and therefore moderately racy, it includes side-boob, a song called ‘Pettin’ in the Park’, and a bloke opening his girlfriend’s metal bustier with a can opener. There’s so much else going on, too — a struggling theatre company, a fistful of spectacular Busby Berkeley stage numbers, and a roller-skating baby — that the plot only occasionally bobs its head up for air. The story isn’t that substantial — a clutch of showgirls get back at some rich men accusing them of being gold-diggers by acting like gold-diggers — but it gives everyone an excuse to wear incredible dresses, change into astounding costumes, and get married at the end. The closing stage number, Remember My Forgotten Man, just ignores the movie that went before it completely and makes a blatant and sobering political point about what happens to men after returning from war. That whole movie was… a whole lot of movie. Three neon-lit violins out of five.