Uncannily similar to Berkeley’s initial claim-to-fame as an ingenious “show doctor,” James Cagney reveals his vaudeville background as dancer/producer Chester Kent, who devises a money-making plan to create elaborate, inventive prologues—theatrical shows that were performed live before a movie—to be farmed out to multiple cinemas. Like its predecessor 42nd Street, Bacon’s furious and funny storylines, revolving around love and money and backstage shenanigans, work again, and the comic plot finally explodes in a frenzy of breathtaking Berkeley marvels in motion, from overhead, abstract kaleidoscopes to flipbook animation and every dizzying formation in between. The naughty, innuendo-laden “Honeymoon Hotel”—scandalously featuring Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell under the covers together—is followed by the deliciously decadent “By a Waterfall,” with each aquatic wonder supplanted by an even more outrageous, hypnogogic arrangement, as well as a sublime ending worthy of David Lynch. The closing number playfully epitomizes the FDR-supporting Warner Brothers’ “New Deal in Entertainment,” pulling patriotism into the mix of illogical, irrepressible, impossible theater pieces and far, far away from the economic reality just offscreen.