Gold Diggers of 1935 (Warner Bros.) (1935)

“*ME ore About Grand Gals and Pianos ‘Gold Digger’ Chorus Girls Declared Most Beautiful Busby Berkeley Thinks His 1935 Group Most Charming Of Any Year HE widest door through the strong but invisible walls that surround Hollywood, is located in Busby Berkeley’s office. More girls get into the magic land of motion pictures through that entrance than through any other. During the past two years Busby Berkeley has picked at least two thousand girls for his various choruses and spectacles. No other person in Hollywood has given so many people their chance in films. It is too early yet to know how many of the girls originally selected by Berkeley for ‘{42nd Street,’’ ‘‘The Kid From Spain,’’ ‘‘Footlight Parade,’’? ‘‘Wonder Bar,’’ or the forthcoming ‘‘Gold Diggers of 1935,’’ the latest First National mammoth musical which MOVER OO. DOG soe tssaret secs Theatre (@iileen gies eee , will finally become stars or featured players in pictures, but there are any number of likely candidates for such honors. In pictures, Berkeley’s name has come to be associated automatically with beauty, much as the name of the late Ziegfeld was considered synonymous with beautiful choruses on the New York stage. But where Ziegfeld selected one, or.at the most two choruses a year, Berkeley picks four or five groups of two to four hundred girls each, every year he works in pictures. All of which makes his office the most impressive ‘‘ open sesame’’ to Hollywood. When the call goes out that Berkeley is casting for a new musical, there is real excitement in Hollywood. The girls begin to gather, and those who have been in his previous productions immediately make arrangements to apply. Most of the applicants have sufficient experience to realize that he requires something more than a pretty face and a personable figure. Berkeley’s girls have to know how to dance and dance well, because his routines are always difficult and intricate. Many of them sing, too. All of which makes it a real distinction to be known as a ‘‘ Berkeley girl.’’ Berkeley sees all applicants in groups varying in numbers from fifty to five hundred. He is kindly, efficient and amazingly rapid in Silk Hats—And Silken Hose! making his choice. He culls and sorts, eliminates and arranges and about one in every ten is made happy by the news that she may return a second day. He has, however, the happy faculty of dismissing the others without hurting their feelings and without intimating by look or word that he thinks they are neither pretty enough nor smart enough to have a place in his chorus. ‘¢Scearce as real beauty is in the world,’’ says Berkeley, ‘‘there is still a plentiful supply in and around Hollywood. It would be unfair to urge the pretty girls of other cities to come to California on the pretext that they will find a job in the movies. The chances are at least ten to one against them. However, enough of them always ignore this advice to keep Hollywood well stocked with acceptable chorus material. I like new faces. I like to work with new people. When a girl shows ability and intelligence, T am glad to urge her to get out of chorus work and to make a try for something better on the screen. At least fifty of the girls I have picked for musicals are now stock players with various studios. ’’ The picture has one of the most imposing casts of any First National productions, including Dick Powell, Adolphe Menjou, Gloria Stuart, Alice Brady, Glenda Farrell, Frank McHugh, Hugh Herbert, Joseph Cawthorn, Grant Mitchell, Dorothy Dare and Winifred Shaw. The music and lyrics are by the famous song team of Harry Warren and Al Dubin with dances created and staged by Busby Berkeley who also directed. the entire production from thescreen play by Manuel Seff and Peter Milne taken from the story by Robert Lord and Milne. These five cuties represent the other several hundred of the Bus Berkeley group in bidding you welcome to “Gold Diggers of 1935” OF Thess 6a a. Theatre. The film is Warners’ most lavish to date, and is provided with a cast including Dick Powell, Gloria Stuart, Alice Brady, Hugh Herbert, Glenda Farrell and Frank McHugh. Mat No. 12—20e Page Twenty Joe Cawthorn Tells Wild Bandit Story They were swapping experiences on the First National set between scenes where ‘‘Gold Diggers of 1935,’’ now showing at the ............ Se ee Theatre, was being produced. There were some whoppers but Joseph Cawthorn topped it with this one. He declared he was making a stage-jump in the early days of California, when a bandit shot the driver of the stage. The passengers Jumped out with guns and engaged the bandits. The driver was bleeding, when a second bandit bullet hit him in the exact same spot and stopped the blood until the stage could get to a doctor in Marysville. For Your FEATURE STORIES” PRODUCTION STORY r Animated Pianos Dance With Girls In “Gold Diggers” In a Berkeley spectacle almost anything can be expected to dance—except the girls. In “42nd Street” a whole city did a shuffle. In “Wonder Bar’ a room full of pillars, huge fluted columns, danced a waltz. In “Dames,” the sommersaults through a “tunnel camera turned of girls.” In “Gold Diggers of 1935,” Berkeley’s newest contribution to First National’s series of spectacular screen entertainments, and which comes to the ................. THGAETO ON 6... ..c50: , it’s pianos that dance. Long ago department heads at First National got used to Busby Berkeley’s amazing requests but his sudden demand for sixty grand pianos, exactly alike and all painted white, came as close to causing apoplexy on the lot as anything this unique genius has ever asked for. He got them of course. ‘The studio has never failed him yet. How he got them trained to dance for him is his secret, a secret he may never have to divulge because all but four of the “high stepping harpsichords” went up in smoke when the warehouse where they were stored burned. There is an all star cast in the picture which includes Dick Powell, Adolphe Menjou, Gloria Stuart, Alice Brady, Glenda Farrell, Frank McHugh, Hugh Herbert, Joseph Cawthorn and a chorus of 300 beautiful girls. PRODUCTION STORY r New Gold Digger Type Is Seen In Mammoth Musical Gold digging has been a popular sport throughout the history of mankind and womankind. The technique has changed from time to time but the general idea of making the men pay and pay is the same. The daughters of Phorcys had their own system when Greece was young. They simply sat on a mythological rock and sang ditties. Cleopatra barge and looked coy. Pompadour waved a fan and dropped her heavy-lidded eyes. reclined on a The gold digging sirens of modern times have used every weapon from short skirts to bathing suits and while there is little subtlety in their method, they manage to get results. “Gold Diggers of 1935” the First National Production which comes to the ................5.. Theatre OR eas introduces another idea into gold digging. There is a woman in it who does the paying, while the golddigging is done by three men. Of course, there are minor operations such as a public stenographer cheating Hugi Herbert out of a few thousand dollars, but the major enterprise is planned and executed by the men at the expense of a woman. “Gold Diggers of 1935” stars Dick Powell with Gloria Stuart, Adolphe Menjou, Hugh Herbert, Frank McHugh, Alice Brady, Grant Mitchell, Glenda Farrell, Winifred Shaw, Dorothy Dare and Ramon and Rosita, dancers. “YOU'LL LIKE VITAPHONE SHORTS!" Says A. E. Christian of the Wayne Theatre, Monticello, Ky. ... And we know you'll like any of these on your program with this show “GUESS STARS,” “Pepper Pot,” (10 minutes). The adventures of the Radio Ramblers, a gangster’s moll and a broken radio—including impersonations of Rudy Vallee, Eddie Cantor, Rubinoff, Chevalier and many others. No. 9616. ® “BUDDY'S THEATRE,” *“‘Looney Tunes,” (7 minutes), Buddy as the impresario of a movie house gives the fans a new kind of thrill in this cartoon reel. No. 9707 “MORMON TRAIL,” “See America First,” (10 minutes). The Mormons of Utah are the subject of this short in the patriotic series by E. M. Newman with dialogue by John B. Ken nedy. No. 9508. “THE BLUE AND GRAY” by E. M. Newman with dialogue by John B. Kennedy. “See America First,” (10 minutes). This presentation, the seventh in the series depicting America's history, tells of the period of the Civil War days. No. 9507. No. 9805. No. 9203. “I HAVEN'T GOT A HAT,” “Merrie Melodies,” (7 minutes). Clever cartoon comedy in beautiful color with plenty of music in the background. SHEMP HOWARD—ROSCOE ATES COMEDY, “Big ‘V’ Comedy,” (19 minutes). Two famous comedians of the stage and screen at their best in presenting side-splitting laughs. MAKE IT ‘SHORT’ AND SWEET ... MAKE IT VITAPHONE !