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Gold Diggers in Paris

Screening on Film
Directed by Ray Enright.
With Rudy Vallee, Rosemary Lane, Hugh Herbert.
US, 1938, 35mm, black & white, 97 min.
Print source: Gosfilmofund

Warner Brothers’ concluding entry in their nearly two-decade-long Gold Diggers series attempted to ward off the waning popularity of the films by introducing an exotic Gallic location and the burlesque talents of a comedy group known as The Schnickelfritz Band, branded as “America’s Most Unsophisticated Band!” Replacing mainstays like Dick Powell and Joan Blondell were Rudy Vallee and Rosemary Lane, who embody the brains and beauty of a makeshift ballet troupe serendipitously sent from New York to Paris to compete in an international festival. Once in France, however, Vallee and Lane are practically upstaged by the emphatic ensemble: dozens upon dozens of boisterous ham actors approximating beret-wearing Parisian types, as well as a throng of real-life dancers. In choreographing this chaos, Berkeley suppresses some of his more baroque manipulations to spotlight the athleticism and grace of these expert performers, but still indulges the occasional compositional novelty: Dutch tilts, for instance, that orient a long line of tap-dancers across the furthermost corners of the Academy frame. 

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