Dames

Ray Enright's 1934 musical is among the showiest of the Warner Bros. backstage pictures, and the real matter here is not the direction but Busby Berkeley's choreography. A reformer's daughter wins the lead in a scandalous Broadway show; the plot exists largely to connect the numbers. Joan Blondell, Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler make up the standard cast of the period. Berkeley's I Only Have Eyes for You sequence, with hundreds of Ruby Keeler faces forming geometric patterns, is among the most cited musical sequences in film history. That choreography is physically impossible on a theatre stage; what Berkeley does is free the musical from the stage and move it entirely into the language of the camera. The film was made in the year the Hays Code began to be strictly enforced, which is the context for the script's jokes about moralism. Who it's for: viewers interested in classic Hollywood musicals and Busby Berkeley's visual design. Who it's not for: anyone bothered that the plot is only a pretext between numbers, or who will find the period's humour dated.