Movie Song of the Week: "Who's Your Little Who-Zis?"

For the Self-Styled Siren, a brief musical number from the most elusive of Busby Berkeley movies, the 1932 film Night World. I can't wait to see this film make it to DVD.

Movie Song of the Week: “Check Your Husbands”

I have no idea why this never caught on. From the 1932 short Over the Counter, it's yet another pre-Code musical number.

I hope you all enjoy it.

Movie Song of the Week: “But We Must Rise (The College Song)”

This pre-Code Busby Berkeley number from 1932's The Kid from Spain has absolutely nothing to do with taxes. I sincerely hope you all aren't disappointed to hear that.

Movie Song of the Week: “Hollywood Party”

I wish most workplaces were as fun as the one in this clip seems to be. Ah, those pre-Code days...

From 1934's Hollywood Party, it's lead singer Frances Williams and company with the title song.

I hope you all enjoy it.

Movie Song of the Week: “Examination”

I'm not sure there's an official title for this number from 1931's Flying High but it provides yet another good example of what Hollywood used to get away with before the Hays Code. And as you might guess, choreographer Busby Berkeley staged the dances for this movie so I wouldn't be surprised to find out that this sketch/number/whatever-it-is was one of his ideas too.

This time, we see a 1930s take on health care. And by the way, that's Charles Winninger from Night Nurse playing the doctor.

I hope you all enjoy it -- even if the humor seems a bit dated.

Movie Song of the Week: “Good Morning Glory”

From 1933's Sitting Pretty -- which is not to be confused with the Clifton Webb movie of the same name -- it's yet another kitschy movie song with water imagery.

This time out we also have the vocal talents of Jack Oakie, Jack Haley (aka the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz), Ginger Rogers and the Pickens Sisters -- as well as yet another reminder of the stuff people got away with before the advent of the Hays Code.

For those of you who are confused by the little boy at Ginger's side toward the end of the song, no, she is not rehearsing for her future role in Bachelor Mother. The boy is supposed to be her little brother. At least, that's the screenwriters' story and so far they're sticking to it.

I hope you all enjoy it.

Movie Song of the Week: “Clean as a Whistle”

I'm not sure I even want to comment on this song. Taken from the 1933 flick Meet the Baron, it's probably best seen as an example of what filmmakers managed to get away with before the advent of the Hays Code.

Granted, it's tame by modern standards, but not exactly safe for work either. Unless you work in a very liberal workplace.

And ay, those accents. Not to mention such lines as “Spic and Spanish.”

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy it.

Movie Song of the Week: “Honeymoon Hotel”

It's been over a year since my breakup with my former bride-to-be and theoretically I should be staying away from songs like this. But it's the humor of songs like this that helped me get over that breakup so I'll go ahead and post this anyway.

“Honeymoon Hotel” is from one of my favorite movies -- 1933's Footlight Parade -- and while I can't say it's my absolute favorite song from that movie (that title would go to “Shanghai Lil”), it is my absolute second favorite. And not necessarily for the reason you think.

There's a lot I can say about this number but I don't wish to post any spoilers. However, I can't resist noting how many double entendres this number gets away with. Apparently those people in the 1930s weren't as prudish as we like to think they were. But then this is from a pre-Code movie.

I hope you all enjoy it.

Movie Song of the Week: “Yes, Yes, My Baby Said Yes, Yes”

The month is almost over. Winter has reminded us yet again that it's still around. And people are already dissing the new President before his first month is up.

Sounds like we need some good old-fashioned escapism from 1931's Palmy Days, brought to you by singer/actor Eddie Cantor and choreographer Busby Berkeley. And let's not forget those hard-working Goldwyn Girls. I don't know how they manage to do all that they do in this number and still keep smiling but if they could bottle it...

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the song.

Movie Song of the Week: “Bend Down, Sister”

From 1931's Palmy Days, it's yet another shameless and politically incorrect musical number from the 1930s, this time featuring gym instructor Charlotte Greenwood and the Goldwyn Girls. Plus you get the choreography of a pre-42nd Street Busby Berkeley and a guest appearance by a very very young Betty Grable (she played the girl with the wink).

I have tried to find a more condensed version but alas, none were available for posting. For that matter, I have tried to resist posting this -- but between all the holiday desserts that have been available and all the New Year's Resolutions that are being made as I write this, it is kinda hard for me to convince myself that this is an inappropriate song to post this week. At least that's the explanation that I intend to stick with.

I hope you all enjoy it.

Gable and Lombard -- Together at First

So much has been said on the Net about how amoral the 1932 film No Man of Her Own is that it's almost embarrassing to note how tame it is by modern standards. True, that “Lombard on a ladder” scene -- in which a young Clark Gable encourages librarian Carole Lombard to climb a ladder in hopes of sneaking a peek up her skirt -- must have seemed risqué back in the 1930s but nowadays it seems mild compared to the average sex scene in Boston Legal or Grey's Anatomy.

True, there is a shower scene involving the film's leading lady (Ms. Lombard) but we in the audience see little of her apart from her head and shoulders. True, there is a clothes-changing scene in which another actress pauses in the act of disrobing to give all the straight men in the audience a good long view of her bare legs, but then she puts on a black negligee and we never do get a glimpse of what her uncovered body looks like above the thighs.

Finally there is the plot. True, the movie makes little effort to deny the Gable character's sordid past as a gambler and a womanizer. But then it settles for one of the oldest plot twists in the book: the old “rogue who is redeemed by the love of a good woman” twist. Gable takes his time getting reformed, of course, but he doesn't exactly protest a lot when Lombard's character insists that they get married and he doesn't even protest when she insists he work for a living. In short, for a dangerous rogue, Gable makes one heck of a pussycat.

But then if I had an on-screen wife like Carole Lombard, I'd be inclined to make more than a few sacrifices in my life as well.

No Man of Her Own marked the first and last time Gable and Lombard were together on screen. Later they would marry and it's been argued that Lombard's early death in a plane crash would forever ruin Gable for all other women. It's not a bad movie -- just a bit more sedate (even by 1932 standards) than I expected.

To put this movie in perspective, consider this: In the 1942 film Casablanca, the Bogart character Rick Blaine shows no shame in admitting -- and showing the audience -- that he hasn't exactly lived like a monk since he last saw Ingrid Bergman's Ilsa -- the love of his life. He also shows no shame in alluding to the fact that he is familiar with whorehouses. Yet he is seen as a far nobler character than the one Gable plays in this movie.

Strange thing, that moral code of yesteryear. Very strange.

Thank God the Hays Code Saved Us from Stuff Like This

Every time I find myself inclined to believe that the moviemakers of yesteryear can do no wrong, I come across a movie like 1933's Meet the Baron. A pre-Code comedy starring a very unfunny Jimmy Durante and a deservedly obscure forerunner of Mel Brooks named Jack Pearl, Meet the Baron is best known today for being the first movie to feature the Three Stooges. Unfortunately, the Stooges do not have too much screen time and most of the screen time they do have is shared with their former leader Ted Healy, a rotund, balding man who combined the appearance of Edgar "Slow Burn" Kennedy with the personality of Moe Howard to create a persona whose popularity can be best determined by the fact that few Three Stooges fans today even bother to mention his name.

There is one sequence in the movie that I found worth watching: a campy Art Deco musical sequence that takes place entirely within the women's shower room. Of course, judging from the number of bad accents that I heard in this sequence, most of the women in this number seemed to have been hired more for their willingness to appear on screen in various states of undress than for their singing ability. However, I still found the sequence to be more entertaining than it deserved to be, and I found myself quite sorry when the music stopped halfway through the song. Especially since there was not one scene as entertaining as that sequence in the rest of the movie.

Yet I can't help thinking how likely it was that that same sequence would have been cut out of the movie altogether had it been made just a few years later. Too bad the Hays Code could not have protected moviegoers from the rest of the movie.

Things I Loved About Gold Diggers of 1933

1. The “We're in The Money” number.
2. That Möbius strip shot in the “We're in the Money” number in which the camera pans from singer Ginger Rogers to a chorus girl on her right, and then to the chorus girl on her right, and then so on until the camera gets back to Ginger Rogers -- without once going left.
3. The way Ginger maintained her dignity through that “We're in the Money” number despite having to sing one chorus in Pig Latin -- and while wearing apparently nothing below the waist save heels, a body stocking and a giant coin.
4. The pre-Code antics of the “Pettin' in the Park” number.
5. Ned Sparks's big speech about the Depression.
6. Joan Blondell's “Remember My Forgotten Man” number. Very easily the highlight of the movie, and deservingly so.