“Honeymoon Hotel” features intricate camera work as Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler keep singing as they move from floor to floor and room to room. So, he completely disregarded the story of Footlight Parade – which tells us that these numbers are supposedly being performed on the stage – and went bonkers. basically gave Berkeley a blank check after the successes of 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933 to come up with whatever he wanted. At the height of the Great Depression, Warner Bros. Seeing those production numbers today is simply jaw-dropping. It sounds insane and impossible, and it is, considering the numbers Berkeley has in store for us. Kent is told he can only impress an investor if his company can miraculously put on three prologues on the same night at three different theaters. Somehow Bacon keeps all these tangents together well enough for the first three quarters of the movie that you can feel out of breath even before the Berkeley numbers finally come in. Yeesh, what’s a guy gotta do to get a break around here? Tap dance? On top of all this, he has no idea that his secretary Nan ( Joan Blondell) is really in love with him. Oh, and the producers aren’t paying Kent his full salary, the girl he thinks has fallen in love with him is a gold digger and his ex-wife revealed she’s not getting the divorce until he gives her more money. A wife of one of the producers insists Kent hire one of her “proteges” (Dick Powell) as a featured singer. He has a spy in his midst, leaking details of prologues to his competitor. Unfortunately for Kent (but fortunately for the audience), nothing comes easy for him. The producers like this idea, and Kent sets to work.

At first, his producers balk at the idea, but then he suggests they put the prologues out on tour, offering theater owners “package deals” across the country. He is going to make the best prologues moviegoers have ever seen. After his wife (Renee Whitney) files for divorce, Kent hatches an ingenious plan. Directed by the incredibly prolific Lloyd Bacon, Footlight Parade stars James Cagney as Chester Kent, a Broadway director whose livelihood is in danger because of talkies.

Footlight parade trailer