Gold Diggers of 1937 (Warner Bros.) (1936)

“GOLD DIGGERS ;% OF 1937’; xk *« *® *® %& PUBLICITY Weeks Of Work Necessary For *‘Gold Diggers’’ Dance Director Busby Berkeley Develops Routines As He Goes Along With 200 Girls By HARRY NIEMEYER, JR. Two hundred flagstaffs — two hundred white flags — two hundred drums. Put them all together, hand them to 200 Hollywood chorus girls, and you have the starting of a Busby Berkeley dance routine. The figuring out of a dance routine for a motion picture of the musical class is no simple assignment even for the most seasoned of dance directors. One can’t put a dance ensemble down with pencil and paper. Like Topsy in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” — it has to grow. Watching Berkeley begin rehearsals for a finale number in the Warner Bros. musical picture “Gold Diggers of 1937,” is a lesson in the art of improvising. It begins with a song written by one of the studio’s song-writing teams. If the lyrie concerns the weather, Berkeley begins to vision thunder and lighting, girls caught in the rain — a raindrop dance. If it concerns something of a futuristic nature, Berkeley gets to work on wheels, unusual camera angles, mechanical effects in costumes and background settings. The particular number which serves as a finale for “Gold Diggers of 1937,” which comes to the Bate rorreertsecises ‘PHOstTe ON | ...-)..,...21%5 happens to concern war. The title is “All is Fair in Love and War”; and Berkeley was instructed to go ahead with his own ideas on the subject. The first idea that came to his head was a drill. Certainly the most stirring part of anybody’s war. With this in mind, the dance director next turned his attention to the props. <A drill wouldn’t look well without flags and drums. The girls were called for first rehearsal the next day. Could he get them? He did. All night long a crew of property men and carpenters worked on the drums and flagpoles. Members of the wardrobe department worked until after midnight on the flags. Next morning at eight o’clock the 600 separate pieces of property were on the stage and ready for use by 200 girls. Thus the rehearsal begins. Picking out four girls, Berkeley lines them up and puts them through a short drill. Everyone makes suggestions. Satisfied with the routine as it is done by the four girls, Berkeley next tries it with eight. Next he takes sixteen. Soon he has the whole 200 going through the drill. If something does not turn out right in the marching, the turning or flag-waving he may have to start all over again. It’s just a part of the game. It takes a couple of weeks to whip 200 girls into shape for one dance routine such as this — a routine which will last approximately three minutes when shown on the screen. “Gold Diggers of 1937” is the fourth of the famous and delightful “Gold Diggers” series turned out by Warner Bros. studios. It is the funniest and most elaborately mounted and east of all of them. It stars Dick Powell and Joan Blondell, and the other noted players inelude Victor Moore, Glenda Farrell, Lee Dixon, the famed eccentric dancer; Osgood Perkins, Charles D. Brown, Rosalind Marquis, and Irene Ware, plus 200 dancing beauties. The picture was directed by Lloyd Bacon and Busby Berkeley. Now They're Gold Diggers Victor Moore Must Be A Good Boss There’s no servant problem in Vietor Moore’s life. The comedian, who appears in a top role in the Warner Bros. musical, “Gold Diggers of 1937,” now playing atathe,sKdas.s. fn, Theatre, has two servants — a valet who has been with him for 30 years, and a cook whose record is a mere 28 years. Each has had at least fifty offers to work elsewhere, but, as their boss says, “it looks like they’ll stay with me permanently.” The two servants travel with Moore between his Hollywood and New York engagements. Osgood Perkins (left) Glenda Farrell and Charles D. Brown (right) form a trio of noted stage and screen stars who aid and abet Dick Powell and Joan Blondell in making merriment for ‘‘Gold Diggers of 1937,’’ the First National musicomedy coming to the .............. ThEAtrE ON 6.0... ...c cee Mat No. 211—20e What Do “Gold Diggers’’ Do When Diggin’s Done? Real Case Histories Of Girls Who Danced In Busby Berkeley Musical Comedies Where are the ‘‘Gold Diggers’’ of yester-year — 1930 and 1933 and 1935, to be specific? The answer isn’t easy. The 180 girls who worked in the Busby Berkeley numbers in ‘‘Gold Diggers of 1933,’’ one of the most famous of all screen beauty ensembles, have scat tered far and wide. These are the girls who danced over the rainbow bridge in the “Shadow Waltz” number, who paraded with Joan Blondell while she sang “My Forgotten Man,” and who swam and skated and rolled snowballs to the tune of “Pettin’ in the Park.” A checkup made at the Warner Bros. studio shows that sixteen worked with Berkeley in the choruses of the new “Gold Diggers of 1937,” which comes to the ect ec eee TREAtTO | ONS w.:. 80 \600.0.0 These are mostly the key girls of all Berkeley spectacles, girls who are kept permanently on salary because of their beauty and screen ability. Thirty-one of the other “Gold Diggers” are married and no longer want to work in pictures. Twelve of these have babies. Three have been divorced. Twenty-four of the original group of “Gold Diggers of 1933” are working at other Hollywood studios or for other dance directors. Sixteen have given up the struggle and have gone back to their homes in various sections of the United States. Other records show that: Nine have moved up to the status of contract players, appearing in pictures in bit roles and minor parts. . Four are in New York stage shows. One is a missionary in Mexico. Two are teaching school. Three are night club entertainers. Twenty of the girls have given up chorus work. Fifty-six of the girls who worked with Berkeley in “Gold Diggers of 1935” are back with him in the present production. Of the entire group of 104 girls working with Berkeley in the current musical, only one boasts the distinction of having worked in every “Gold Digger” musical since “Gold Diggers of Broadway” which was released late in 1930. She is Dorothy O’Connell — who ean truthfully claim the title of “Miss Gold Digger of All Time.” Movie Song Writers Set Tasks For Whole Studio Any Word Of Their Lyrics May Call For Work By Hundreds Of Other Workers By HARRY NIEMEYER, JR. The Hollywood lyric writer, sitting in his studio bungalow and knocking out a few words for a tune to be used in a forthcoming musical picture, is the gentleman who unintentionally and unofficially makes the first budget estimate of what this particular song is going to cost the studio to pro duce. Being first a genius—he has to be to get the salary he commands —and secondly an artist, the lyric writer pays little attention to the money that will be involved as a cause of his words. If Moon rhymes with Spoon he’ll put it down; blissfully unaware of the fact that the single word “moon” will probably turn the mechanical department into an uproar for two or three days and cause several property boys to get gray around the temples and mumble a bit at night in their troubled sleep. Virtually every other word that the song-writing gentleman puts down on his paper represents a piece of property to be obtained and the necessary money involved in getting it or constructing it. Write the word “elephant” (if you can rhyme it with anything) and the property man, looking over the temporary lyric outline, gets ready to hire a couple of dozen assorted pachyderms. He thinks of the song writer at the same time, but he usually keeps those thoughts to himself. When Harry Warren and Al Dubin, one of the song writing teams at the Warner Bros. studio, wrote their “All Is Fair In Love and War” number for the musical picture “Gold Diggers of 1937,” which opens at the ............ PENGALTO.: OM ei pers: seteasn. , they exercised the usual song writer’s conservative manner in their lyric. They merely called for a battlefield, several hundred yards of trenches, a huge rocking chair big enough to hold 100 persons on its seat, 50 regulation-sized cannon, 250 flag-staffs, a plaster fort 30 feet high, 200 drums, 200 bugles and 200 Hollywood daneing girls. They let the property man off easily this time. Neither one of them could think of a word to rhyme with “Battleship.” Every one of the above properties — including girls — was needed because of the fact that the two song writers had indicated just such things in their Gold Digger Here’s Joan Blondell, once more teaching the world how to aid the fiscal situation by taking money from those who have it for the benefit of poor but beautiful girls who need it. It’s all in ‘‘Gold Diggers of 1937’’ now playing at NE a nee eT ae Theatre. Mat No. 111—10¢e At The Strand Dick Powell and Joan Blondell head the all star cast of fun mak ers and dancing girls now making Gehitsal ther ain oem Theatre in ‘‘Gold Diggers of 19387,’’ the fifth and best edition of the world famous series. Mat No. 114—10c song. Approximately 200 technicians in all branches at the studio were put to work immediately on the construction. Half a hundred spent a full week rigging up the battlefield and the trenches. Twenty more, from the carpenter shop, went to work on the gigantic rocking chair — which had to rock and hold half of the chorus at the same time. The entire force from the tin shop began constructing the cannon, while carpenters and prop men turned out the flagpoles. The 20 girls were picked by Dance Director Busby Berkeley. In defense of the song writers it must be said that the song has not been written that wouldn’t put a studio to considerable outlay and expense. Take, for instance: ‘“Mary had a litle lamb Its fleece was white as snow’’ The “little lamb”’— unless it was purchased in a butcher shop at 19 cents a pound — would probably be 25 feet high and adjusted mechanically so that it eould stand up on its hind legs and wave an American flag with its paws. And that would be just the beginning! “Gold Diggers of 1937” is the fourth of the famous and delightful “Gold Diggers” series turned out by the Warner Bros. studios. Page Thirty-five