Dunham16 His 1933 blockbuster 42ND STREET focuses on serious issues backstage of performers and show creators. The following year he used three members of its principal cast, Guy Kibbee, Dick Powell and Ruby Keeeler as three of his leads in DAMES casting other familiar faces from Hugh Herbert to Joan Blondell to Zasu Pitts. This is a screwball comedy few of the scenes played straight its ending ending having nothing to do with tying up the threads of the plot. The brilliance of this film in my opinion is the way Berkley softens the true presentation of the hard life and desperation of show business people of the era by having a longer production number of the finished show filmed than in most of his films and having his two well known character actors, Hugh and ZaSu filming much of their familiar comic shtick to soften the blow of the reality of the scenes of the hard times of the performers.

Edgar Allan Pooh . . . you'll find the proof that this Warner Bros. flick created the Trump Presidency, under the Law of Quantum Physic's Rules for String Theory. "Ezra Ounce," Trump's cast iron template here, spends most of his time holed up--Howard Hughes style--on the top floor of "Ezra Ounce Tower," managing a multitude of businesses worth a cumulative $35 million (or about Three Trumps, adjusted for inflation). Early during DAMES Ounce launches a bogus public decency campaign to Make America Great Again. (Is any of this beginning to sound familiar?) Later (at 1:02:40), Trump's Chinese PJ top plays a crucial predictive role amid "The Girl at the Ironing Board" number, goosing Joan Blondell (as "Mabel Anderson," to which Mabel responds, "and when I'm off on Sundays, I miss all these Undies"). Since Today's America happens to be stuck in a Trumpster Alternate Universe created by DAMES, you may wonder what will happen next under the first-ever U.S. Game Show Host-in-Chief. Just fast forward through DAMES to 1:29:46, where you'll find a black-eyed Ounce\Trump in jail, saying "Phooey!" to his Alt.Right Tea Party Moral Minority Conservative "Christian" dupes.

zardoz-13 "Dames" is another vintage Warner Brothers' Broadway dance musical about the show that must go on in spite of the circumstances. Several show-stopping musical numbers occur during the last half-hour with Busby Berkeley orchestrating them with his own distinctive trademark movements. Director Ray Enright keeps the action moving at a snappy pace. Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler are the couple here to watch while Joan Blondell has a field day as a sexy theater girl who isn't beneath blackmail. Guy Kibbee is the sympathetic schmuck caught between Blondell's conniving blonde and Hugh Herbert's moral stalwart. The theme of censorship runs throughout Delmar Daves's predictable but interesting screenplay. Of course, you want to see Dick Powell succeed, but you feel sorry for poor Guy Kiddee. Happily, "Dames" serves up a happily-ever-after ending. You also get the feeling that something isn't right with the upstanding moral stalwart who wants to demolish dens of depravity. Once you see what he guzzles to rid himself of the hiccups, you'll laugh. As the primary villain, screwball multi-millionaire Erza Ounce emerges as a figure of derision. You'll get a hint of this while he is traveling by train and tries to walk past a fat woman and accidentally—or so he contends—trips on her and sits on her lap momentarily.When he isn't fighting an uphill battle to land a role in a Broadway musical, singer Jimmy Higgens (Dick Powell) romances Barbara Hemingway (Ruby Keller of "42nd Street") who turns out to be his thirteenth cousin. The dramatic conflict grows out of the clash between prudish tycoon Ezra Ounce (Hugh Herbert) who abhors the stage and Higgens who has labeled him the black sheep of the family. Nevertheless, Jimmy is desperate to break into Broadway, even if he has to come up with his own book. Uncle Ezra has decided to divide up his $35 million fortune. He plans to give $10-million to Horace Hemingway (Guy Kibbee of "Captain Blood"), but Horace must measure up to Ezra's high moral standards.Meanwhile, Horace is married to Mathilda (Zasu Pitts of "Mr. Skitch"), and they sleep in separate bedrooms as was the standard in Hollywood during the 1930s. Ezra is such a prude that he doesn't trust women and refuses to let them enter his bedroom. He resides in Buffalo, New York, and presides over three major businesses: The Buffalo Security Bank, St. Lawrence Waterways, Ltd., and the Empire Insurance Company of Buffalo. Horace visits Ezra in Buffalo and they take the train to New York. During the train ride, a career oriented hoofer, Mabel Anderson (Joan Blondell of "The Public Enemy"), sneaks into Horace's sleeping compartment. How Mabel gained access to Horace's compartment is never explained. This is just a complication to add another character to the story. Actually, it constitutes a flaw in the otherwise flawless plotting. Naturally, Horace is mortified and doubly so because Ezra will disown him when he discovers his adulterous behavior. Horace manages to bribe Mabel with a hundred dollar bill.Meanwhile, Jimmy and his collaborators, songwriters Jonathan Harris (Phil Regan) and Buttercup Balmer (Sammy Fain), give Broadway producer Harold Ellsworthy Todd (Berton Churchill of "Stagecoach") a rendition of their music. Todd raves about the music and their youth. He hands Jimmy a check for $5000 at about the same time that Mabel saunters into the office. Mabel reviles Todd for the cheapskate pr0oducer that he is and he flees. Mabel wants to know more about Jimmy's song and dance musical, much to the chagrin of Barbara. Jimmy runs Barbara, Jonathan, and Balmer out of the office and plays her a number. Mabel decides to revisit poor Horace. As Horace, his wife, and Ezra are about to retire for the evening, Horace enters his bedroom and finds Mabel tucked into bed awaiting his arrival. She threatens to scream if he doesn't fork over $20-thousand. Ezra and Matilda hear a fragment of the scream and Horace tells them that it was his water pipes singing. Ultimately, despite all his bickering with Mabel, Horace winds up giving her $25-thousand. Imagine Horace's surprise when he learns later that Barbara will appear in the show.As it turns out, Ezra suffers from a bad case of the hiccups. He has everybody scrambling around New York trying to find him Dr. Silver's Golden Elixir that will cure him. The first bottle contains a hefty percentage of alcohol and later bottles contain even more alcohol. When Jimmy's show opens, Barbara cannot make it in time to perform the musical numbers so Mabel steps into her place. The number with Mabel singing to clothing hanging on a clothesline outdoors is amusing and innovative. Meantime, Ezra brings an army of well-dressed henchmen to the play to break it up when he finds it intolerable. The signal for them to rush the stage is when Ezra waves a handkerchief. Bulger, Erza's bodyguard, brings more bottles of Dr. Silver's magical elixir, and Ezra gets so stinking that he forgets his own plan. At one point, Mabel waves her scarf at him from the stage and Ezra responds with his handkerchief and his henchmen disrupt the play. Everybody but Jimmy and Barbara wind up behind bars, but Ezra has changed his mind and doesn't want to reform society."Dames" is an above-average, but predictable dance comedy.

MikeMagi Busby Berkeley has rightfully been lauded as a legendary dance director. But he was also a master of special effects -- and there's no better proof than "Dames." Back in the primitive days before computer generated imagery, he somehow fashioned a floating flotilla of Ruby Keeler faces, a high-kicking chorus of Keeler clones, a series of vanishing crowds (for "I Only Have Eyes for You") and a dance troupe that turned to paper through which Dick Powell suddenly burst. All came off as seamlessly as the dizzying kaleidoscopes that were his trademark. As for the rest of "Dames," it's not bad. There's some sprightly satire of blue noses, personified by Hugh Herbert as the whimsically named billionaire Ezra Ounce who wants to close down Broadway. But if that happened, you'd never get to see Ms. Keeler tap dance as if she was killing cockroaches or watch Joan Blondell perform a witty tribute to the passion of laundry day.