Another of those classic movies that TCM shows often enough because it's part of the old Turner library, but that I'd never actually seen before, is Gold Diggers of 1935. So, the last time it showed up on TCM I made the point of recording it so that I could do a post on it eventually.
The movie opens up with a ridiculous number of staff members making final preparations for what seems to be the grand opening of a new hotel, except that it's not new but only open for the summer which is why you wonder how it can support such a large staff. Among the staff are desk clerk Dick Curtis (Dick Powell), who is taking on this summer job in his years between college, as he's really hoping to complete his studies to become a doctor and marry his girlfriend Arline (Dorothy Dare).
Coming to the resort are the ultra-wealthy who have decamped from New York or Boston, one supposes, since this is mentioned as being New Hampshire. One such family is the Prentiss family, led by a matriarch widow (Alice Brady) with two adult children: Humbolt (Frank McHugh) and Ann (Gloria Stuart). Humbolt is a playboy who has already been through four wives and cost Mom a ton of money to get out of the marriages as a result. Ann is set to be married to T. Mosley Thorpe (Hugh Herbert), which is in many ways more of a marriage of convenience since Thorpe is even more fabulously wealthy than the Prentiss family. Ann certainly doesn't seem thrilled with the idea of this marriage.
And then we see why. Thorpe will also be spending the summer at this resort, working on his book, a monograph on snuff boxes. He has the hotel send up a secretary to take dictation, getting sent young Betty (Glenda Farrell) who falls for him and also sees dollar signs. You can already guess how part of the romantic conflict is going to be solved. The other half comes when Mrs. Prentiss hires Dick as a chaperone for Ann. Those two fall in love, which seems a bit mean to Arline but things are going to turn out OK for her in the end too.
Mrs. Prentiss is asked to put on a charity show, something the family has apparently been asked to do every year, and it's at this point that we learn that she's no longer as fabulously wealthy as she used to be, thanks to the Depression cutting the dividends her late husband's business interests yield. Stage producer Nicoleff (Adolphe Menjou) shows up; he's heavily in debt and gets the idea of taking Prentiss for as much as he can while putting on that show. The show is, of course, the big excuse for all the musical numbers the movie has around the wafer-thin plot, with the highlight musical number being "The Lullaby of Broadway".
The plot of Gold Diggers of 1935 is even sillier than some of the previous musicals Dick Powell had made, although again one doesn't watch a Busby Berkeley musical for the scintillating plots. Hugh Herbert is playing such a drip that it's only logical the only thing anybody really sees in him is his money. Dick Powell is appealing, although he doesn't have much to do. It's no wonder he wanted to do a movie like Murder, My Sweet so that he could be considered a more "serious" actor.
Having finally seen Gold Diggers of 1935, I understand why it's not as well known as its predecessor Gold Diggers of 1933. It's watchable, and the "Lullabye of Broadway" number is worth the price of admission, but it's not an all-time great either.
No comments:
Post a Comment