Without Berkeley’s awe-inspiring handiwork, Footlight Parade would be just another stale, dime-a-dozen backstage musical. He also directed them in Footlight Parade, and because they grab all the attention, he gets the credit for the whole film.
That’s not entirely incorrect, because Berkeley, a former Broadway choreographer who revolutionized the movie musical by devising ingenious kaleidoscopic set-pieces that transformed chorus lines into geometric shapes and patterns, conceived the musical sequences in both films. The journeyman director helmed a couple of groundbreaking Hollywood musicals ( 42nd Street and Footlight Parade) in the early 1930s, but ask even serious classic film buffs who directed those pictures and they’ll likely say Busby Berkeley. Starring: James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powellīlu-ray Special Features: Featurette, vintage short subjects, animated shorts, trailer Theatrical Release Date: October 21, 1933 The closest thing to an acid trip in 1930s Hollywood was a Busby Berkeley musical number, and Footlight Parade is one of the filmmaker’s most potent hallucinogens.
